


Nadadel, Brother of All Brothers

by madame_faust



Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - All Media Types, The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Blue Mountains | Ered Luin, Dwarves In Exile, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-11
Updated: 2016-09-23
Packaged: 2018-06-01 15:53:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 24,136
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6526510
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/madame_faust/pseuds/madame_faust
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Vignettes from a world in which Frerin was not felled beneath Orcish blades at the Battle of Azanulbizar.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I have just been missing Frerin terribly recently, and had a hankering to write him without actually being consigned to his Doom. I suppose this could also be called 'The More Things Change, the More they Remain the Same,' but let's just go with the title I've got.
> 
> **Warning:** For **language rated PG-13** , but really, they're battle-hardened dwarves, they've earned it.

Thorin would not leave his brother’s side, stubbornly refusing attention to his own wounds so that Frerin might get the lion’s share of the Healers’ aid. There was a pitiful amount to go around, even when the Healers together made terrible decisions that were anathema to their craft, _Not long for this earth, it’ll be time wasted, and bandages,_ they were heard to whisper. Dís found herself inclined to do just the opposite, flitting from one to the other of their wounded kin and subjects, making herself useful where she could and simply providing company and prayers where she could not. 

The only thing that might’ve tempted Thorin to leave Frerin was the fact that Dwalin lay, unmoving, in a deep sleep such as only the grievously injured enjoyed. There was a bandage wrapped round his head, thick gauze padded over an eye that the Healers still did not know the fate of. But Dwalin had his own elder brother to look after him. And that was _all_ he had. No father. Not anymore.

And so he remained, rooted to the spot like an ancient obelisk, grave and unmoving, seemingly immoveable. He took no meat and those few sips of water that his mother coaxed him to drinking were hard to swallow past the tightness in his throat.

_This is my fault_ , was all he thought as he gazed down at Frerin, still, so _still_ and pale as chalk. _I should have listened to my father._

Thráin had warned his son away from the battle - had all but _forbidden_ until Thorin convinced his grandfather to overrule his father in the matter. But Udad was gone, now. And Thráin, as King Under the Mountain, could not be so circumvented by his eldest son again.

Dimly, Thorin wondered what his punishment would be, for surely there would be reprisals. In a morbid way, he looked forward to it with glad anticipation; it would be no less than he deserved. 

Not once had his father been to see his second son, save for a cursory glance as the Healers hurried him into their tents. Just enough to see that his chest still rose and fell. There was so much confusion, so much to do - talk, even, of continuing the fight into the very heart of Dimrill Dale, but Thráin forbade it. They’d lost enough going outnumbered into a war against Orcs. There was no need of tempting a still greater enemy to lay waste to them.

So wrapped up in misery had he been that Thorin did not notice the hitch in his younger brother’s breathing - which was ultimately for the best, as it would have utterly terrified him, thinking Frerin had taken a turn for the worst. He missed a grimace as well, but his ears picked up the soft, “Uhggggh,” that Frerin made as his eyes fluttered open at last. 

Thorin stiffened, hardly daring to breathe himself. His hands hovered uselessly over his brother’s tightly wrapped chest, compulsively looking at the place where the gash that had _just_ missed his throat was hidden, possibly festering, did the faint red line, just visible beneath the cloth look darker? Did it seem to be seeping further in? Should he shout for a Healer?

But all his thoughts flew away when Frerin, with remarkable strength for one so badly wracked on the battlefield, reached out and took hold of his brother’s fingers. Thorin's mouth opened, but no sound emerged, tears filled his eyes involuntarily and he thought, _I must speak, I must tell him how so sorry I am, how this would not have happened if it wasn't for my meddling, how -_

But he never did. 

“Before you say anything,” he wheezed, voice rattling out of his throat through dry lips, “it’s not your fault. Unless you're the one who got that hit off. In which case: fuck you, nice blow, and _ouch_. In that order.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Warning:** for **language** and general **military culture**.

They wanted to leave. They wanted to abandon that burned and desolate place as swiftly as had those dwarves whose ashes were not scattered to the wind. Thorin had left the Healer’s tents to see his grandfather burned. To see Fundin burned. To see Loni, Heidrek, Náin...there were too many to name, almost too many to remember. But once they were gone, Thorin wasted no time in taking up his vigil again. 

_That_ was why they lingered. There were too many too injured to be safely moved. Worst of all was Dáin who had _still_ not waked, except in short bursts and only to groan in pain. The leg had to go. Once Thorin was convinced that Frerin was out of danger, he took to looking in on Dáin regularly, though his cousin was well looked-after by his father’s Captain of the Guard, Nar. Dwalin was up and walking about, bless his hands - and his _eyes_ , for he was sure to recover, just as hale as ever he’d been with nothing to show for his ordeal save a scar on his face.

Thorin had no scars. Thorin had not had his injuries seen to, but they were so minor they hardly bore thinking on. Despite all the wounded around them, despite the funeral pyres, to look at Thorin, it was as if nothing had ever happened.

 _How_ , he wondered, numb with the pain of it all. When their best warriors - when _Fundin_...

His mother put it all down to luck. “You are a fortunate lad,” she said, taking his hands in hers and kissing them - after he’d washed, she’d ordered him to wash after the pyres, she said she did _not_ want to smell the smoke on him. “No accounting for it. It’s the way of war. My father fell in the same battle that did no more than take your father’s eye. No accounting.”

As Freya did not blame him for coming through the battle unscathed, neither did she laud him for all he had done in war; she alone of all their people seemed indifferent to his slaying of the Pale Orc. It was a relief, for Thorin took little pleasure in it. Less pride. Only a grim satisfaction that his grandfather was avenged and an aching regret that he had not gotten there sooner.

“I didn’t know that,” Thorin replied softly. “I didn’t...didn’t know it was the same battle.”

“Hardly a battle, more a skirmish,” she clarified. “In the Iron Hills. Years ago. We weren’t married. And for all that Náin got out fine, nary a scratch. And now…”

Freya had been making herself useful, sitting with those who had no one to care for them, who had come to the battle alone or whose kin had all been slain. There were _so_ many and Thorin felt shame-faced that he’d so monopolized Frerin’s bedside when he had other family and so many had none. And so he joined his mother and little Dís as they went round the tents, paying especial attention to one soul who he had known, a little, before the battle. 

“Bifur,” Dís said, softly laying a hand upon his arm. “Frerin and I played and sang for him one night, he’s got cousins, he said, in the West. I think he’s from the Blue Mountains. He was so sweet and kind.”

Thorin remembered him well, and he was sweet. He’d defended Clan Longbeard - defended Thorin’s grandfather - from grumblings among the other volunteers that they were greedy, plotting, _mad_. And Thorin had been so grateful. Had he said as much?

“Does he have any kin left?” Thorin asked a passing Healer. He had been asking such questions a great deal lately and was used to the answer, _I don’t know_. 

But this time he got lucky. _Lucky_ , he wondered when his luck would run out. 

“Aye, he’s a miner by trade, got two lads in the Ered Luin he’s in charge of...I think they’re near of age, at least apprenticed,” the Healer informed him. She went on to say that he had come to the wars with his uncle and cousin, who had been burned. There would be no one to look after him on the roadway. He was too fragile to be moved, an axe deeply embedded in his skull that could not be moved. They had no idea whether he _would_ ever wake and the Healers had done all they could. 

That night, Frerin moved back in to his own family’s lean-to. The wound across his chest only had to scar over, the risk of infection had passed and though he was too weak still to walk far, he was up for jokes and that was something. He was also vocal enough to whinge. 

“ _Thoooorin_ ,” Frerin waved him over and implored, “could you fetch me a cup of water? _Pleeeeeeease?_ ”

As Frerin was still too badly off to bear blows, Thorin flicked him on the nose and said, “I’d be more inclined to do so if you didn’t keen at me.”

“Aye, but as it annoys you, I thought I might as well,” Frerin grinned. He shifted slightly against his pallet, grimacing. “So, what now? Back to the Iron Hills? It’s six months’ journey, but I’d not say no to a bed when all’s said and done.”

“I don’t know,” Thorin scrubbed a hand over his face. “Have you spoken to Adad?”

“Ha!” Frerin laughed hollowly. “When he came in to see me, I pretended to be asleep - he’s even more grim-faced than _you_ , nadad, and I knew he’d make no effort to cheer me. Have _you_ spoken to our beloved father?”

Thorin had to admit that he had not. Thráin had been so much occupied of late that there had been very little time to even see him. The duties of a king, even a king without a home, were demanding. And they had been thrust upon Thráin with all the swiftness of a blade cutting through flesh.

At first there had been no decisions to be made. Burn the slain, tend the wounded. But as the bodies of their warriors healed, discussions needed to be had about what was to become of them, the dwarves of Erebor, still homeless at the end of it all. 

The difficulty was, with Grór miles and miles away in the Iron Hills and Dáin unable to speak on his behalf, the negotiations were largely theoretical at this point. But that did not stop Thráin from arriving at what he thought was a grim reality. 

“We’ll have to settle in the Iron Hills,” he said in a terse, quiet conference with only his family. 

Freya gave a start. “What? What _we_? What are you talking about?”

“They, then,” Thráin said, scrubbing his hand over his face. “We’ve wandered long enough. And now there are so...so few of our people remaining - and so many still in the East, who stayed after that first winter. It makes sense.”

After the dragon came, they fled to the Iron Hills. They had no choice, winter was on its way, they had all fled with little more than the clothes on their backs and the tools in their hands. Many of their people had never left, finding work and lodgings, especially those dwarves who had managed to escape with their children. Life on the road was too uncertain, too risky. It was a wonder they had not all remained.

But they had not. For every dwarf who stayed behind, there were two who chose to leave when Thrór decided he could not remain a guest of his brother’s court. The animosity between the two ran thick and had been festering long. As difficult as a wandering life was, Grór’s hospitality was even more intolerable. 

“I don’t understand,” Balin interjected, in a manner that indicated he understood _exactly_. “You would order your people to journey East?”

“I don’t see as I have a choice - I don’t see as I would have to order them,” Thráin sighed. “Their loyalty was to Thrór. And whatever...the Iron Hills is prosperous. Those are our kin, after all. Our own people. That’s got to count for something.”

Dwalin snorted derisively. “I won’t go. Settle at Grór’s court? Fuck that.”

“Dwalin!” Freya exclaimed, looking meaningfully over at Dís - who appeared to be asleep and hadn’t heard him anyway. “Language.”

“He’s right,” Thorin said quietly, eyes fixed hard on the fire. “Grandfather would never have wanted that.”

“Your grandfather isn’t - ” Thráin began, but Thorin cut him off.

“And the people who are loyal to Udad wouldn’t want it either,” Thorin said. “Why does this...why would _this_ change anything?”

“Because your grandfather isn’t _here_ ,” Thráin said forcefully, quelling Thorin into mulish silence. “And I am determined to see them settle. There’s no hope of reclaiming our old lands, we’ll have to go to another range and the Iron Hills is our best bet, that’s where all our claims of kinship lay and many among the survivors have family there.”

“Who they may choose to return to,” Balin conceded. “I just don’t think it’s advisable for your first official act to amount to exiling your people.”

“I wouldn’t - ”

“You would!” Freya exclaimed. “And it’s not fair, Thráin. They’ve lost nearly everything - among the Seven Clans, _everything_ to rid the world of orcish filth and you would banish those same dwarves, who were so unbendingly loyal to the court of one who couldn’t even arse himself to take up arms and fight?”

They were quiet for a long while. It was true, and a topic none had touched upon or dared mention. But it had not gone unnoticed that Grór remained behind where so many of the Lords and Ladies of Clans further distant had mounted and come to the aid of the Longbeards in their long war. 

“Da thinks he’s too old to go orc-hunting,” Náin had laughed over it with Thrór when it all began, trying to make a joke of it, trying to deflect any further comment. Thrór, no matter what his feelings were for his brother, would not shame Náin over it, perish the thought. They’d both chuckled over some talk of Grór having a gouty constitution and that was it. Certainly neither of them said anything about Thrór being his senior by nearly fifty years. They didn’t have to. Everyone knew and Thrór fought in the thick of it until the end. 

“He’s a coward,” Dwalin said, quietly, but forcefully. “And I won’t serve a coward.”

“Náin was as good and stout-hearted a dwarf as ever lived,” Thráin said.

“Aye,” his wife replied, meeting his gaze steadily. “He was.”

It was the hope of Náin that persuaded so many to stay. Though the dwarves of Erebor might have inherited a portion of their king’s aversion to his brother, they were willing to overlook it when the considered what sort of king Náin would make. But Náin would never be king. And Dáin was so young and so ill, he’d scarcely reached his majority. _Was_ that court their safest bet? Could such a place ensure their survival? Their prosperity seemed too much to wish for at this point.

“Couldn’t we go somewhere else?” Frerin asked. “It’s not as if it’s the Iron Hills or nowhere else. There are dwarves in the world apart from us and our people you know.”

“Of course there are, but we’ve got to think who would have us,” Balin pointed out. “Would you like to ask an Ironfist King if she’d give us home and halls? I can’t recall the last time the Ironfists opened their ranges to any outside their own Clans, they don’t even permit gatherings of outsiders in the heart of their Mountains.”

“Not everyone’s an Ironfist!” Frerin said. “There’s got to be someone. Hasn’t there?”

It was a question that was not easily answered. Distaste for Clan Longbeard was deep now, deep as grief and tempers were running high. No matter how many kingdoms had sent their armies to aid in the great wars, those armies had been routed. And it was the Longbeards who had begun the fray, seven years ago. 

“Whatever you do,” Freya said at last, “don’t order your people away. Don’t make them pledge their fealty to Grór. It isn’t fair. And they won’t look upon you kindly for it.”

One by one, the small assembly broke up and went to sleep. Thráin likely thought he was alone, when Thorin spoke up suddenly, in the darkness. 

“There’s...the West,” he said hesitantly. “I was talking to a Broadbeam once. A soldier. He said they had room to settle there. If we were in need.”

“A soldier?” Thráin asked, the shifting of the scars over his pitted eye socket indicating that he’d raised a skeptical brow. “Of what rank?”

“Common,” Thorin said, the blood rising in his face. “Volunteer. A miner, but...it could be, couldn’t it? The Mountains there are so scattered, so many small villages. Not what they once were, but…”

His voice trailed off to nothing and he thought he shouldn’t have spoken. What did he know of it, really? What did he know of anything, the untried, unscarred prince who scratched in the dirt for copper coins to earn his bread? Why did he believe he could speak with authority?

Thorin fully expected his father to rail at him. To curse him and tell him to go to bed and keep his ignorant opinions to himself. But Thráin was silent and seemed to be thinking.

“It’s not a bad idea,” he said, and that was such high praise that Thorin thought he’d misheard. “It’s an idea, anyway. And that’s more than I’ve got. I’ll consider it. Get to bed, lad. Another long day’s ahead.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think kingliness is doing him a world of good, our grumpy guy.


	3. Chapter 3

Thorin found himself lingering by the bed of that Broadbeam miner more and more as the weeks drew on. He’d caught a fever and the Healers, though not surprised, had feared the worst. But he got through it. He’d even woken, briefly, only long enough to ask for water in their fathertongue. And then he said something that sounded like a name, but it was impossible to know.

“Does anyone know the names of his kinfolk?” Thorin asked, but the Healers had no idea. He finally managed to get an answer out of one of his fellow-soldiers.

“He came abroad with a cousin and an uncle, but they were lost,” the lad, hardly any older than Thorin himself, said, scratching his chin thoughtfully. “Mister Fíli and Kíli - me and Kíli was mates, I know Bifur a bit. Good lad. Sore shame ‘bout what happened as he’s got two more cousins under his care. S’why I never saw Bifur so much as Kíli, they both worked down the mines - family o’miners. But he’s had charge o’them two lads since they was little and so took on as much work as he could manage. An orc raid, it was, sent his poor mother and father to stone, ‘long with his auntie and uncle - Bombur and Bofur’s mam and da, that’s their names. I reckon as Bofur’s the elder. He’s of ‘prenticing age, along with Víli, Kíli’s brother. They must’ve got word by now. Poor sods.”

The lad’s face crumpled then and Thorin, at a loss, thanked him for his information and bade him farewell.

“I’ve got to ask you a serious question,” Frerin later asked him, as Thorin sat, glumly working his spoon round a bowl of something that was attempting to be porridge and doing a poor job.

“The Maker forfend,” Thorin replied softly. He spoke a beat too late, as if Frerin’s words had to cross a great distance for him to hear them. He got in such moods, sometimes, when he seemed very far away from them all. Frerin would never say so, but it was one of the few things that could truly terrify him.

“Are you planning on _doing_ aught with the sad stories you’ve collected?” he asked Thorin pointedly. “Or are you just...I don’t know, taking them all on as though you’re responsible for everyone who got a wee scratch during the wars?”

“An axe to the head isn’t a wee anything,” Thorin said, laying his bowl aside. Frerin picked it up and tucked in, though it was really more a chewing exercise than a meal, as such.

“Aye, that’s true,” he admitted through a mouthful of food. “But are you doing yourself or Mister Bifur any favors, wringing your beard by his bedside and learning all about his grieving kinfolk? You’d be better served bathing Dáin’s brow, ‘least you’re kin.”

“Dáin has Nar and his grandfather’s people to look after him,” Thorin pointed out. “It’s not the same. Bifur and a hundred other dwarves just like him don’t have _anyone_. And he’s probably the worst of the lot who’ve survived. He came with an uncle and a cousin, both are gone - can you imagine that? Can you imagine going on campaign with your kin, taking a hit to the head and upon waking discovering that they’re _gone_?”

Involuntarily, Frerin shuddered, which pulled at the still-knitting flesh of his chest uncomfortably. “No,” he said finally. “Not really. And you shouldn’t think of it. We came out alright.”

The look Thorin shot him was just enough to make Frerin lose his appetite. He pushed his (actually Thorin’s) bowl aside and looked away uncomfortably. Thorin had a way of cowing him sometimes, at least as much as he ever could be cowed. In that moment his eyes were full of such profound grief that Frerin felt his throat constricting and his eyes burning.

Where Thorin chose to dwell upon all they’d lost, Frerin tried not to think of it. He didn’t delude himself into imagining Udad or Mister Fundin were about to walk over the crest of the hill together or that Mister Loni was going to sneak up from behind and ruffle his hair. He didn’t even try to imagine that when he heard a rare guffaw, it was Heidrek, laughing somewhere just out of his range of vision. But...he tried hard not to think of them. Not to fill in with his mind where the gaps were. He tried to forget there were any gaps at all.

“Fine, alright,” Frerin said at last. “But I don’t see that you or he are profiting by your melancholy. And I remember him. He’s got kin at home. So someone’s waiting for him, even if there isn’t anyone about to nurse him.”

Thorin picked his head up suddenly and nodded. “Aye. So they are.” And then swept of without a word to Frerin about where he was bound.

Frerin found out his purpose soon enough. When he and Dís crawled into bed that night, they found Thorin awake, writing by moonlight.

“Who are you writing to?” she asked. “Anyone you might want to talk to is right here.”

“Well, Dwalin’s not,” Frerin pointed out to her, easing himself onto his bedroll. “But I can’t imagine you’re writing him.”

“I’m not,” Thorin said quietly. “I’ve taken a register.”

Without looking up from his letter, he handed Frerin a sheet of parchment, where hastily scrawled names and ranges littered the page.

“Halgi, Red Mountains, espoused of Jarla, Bofur, Blue Mountains, kin of Bifur, Varla, Blue Mountains, espoused of Fíli...Thorin, I hate to tell you,” Frerin said, glancing up at him. “But we’re not acquainted with a one of these dwarves.”

“No, we’re not,” he said quietly. “But the commanders and lords and ladies haven’t time to draft letters. I have. I’m doing something. I thought you might be pleased.”

Frerin looked the names over - Dís peered down as well, though she could likely only make out a few place names amid the scribbling. “But there’s got to be a hundred names!”

“A hundred twenty-five,” Thorin replied evenly. “Just those dwarves who don’t have anyone left here to give an account of them. I got permission before I started. Most didn’t care when I asked if I could write to survivors, some were even grateful. It’s not anything to go by, you know, when you get notice that one of your kin was injured. It might be a broken arm, it might be…”

“Oh,” Dís said quietly, sitting down upon her bedroll. “That’s so kind of you. I wish I could help.”

“There’s not much to be written, really,” Thorin said, finally glancing up to look at her. “I need the work.”

“Who’re you writing to?” Frerin asked, curious despite himself.

“Varla, a ‘dam in the Blue Mountains,” Thorin said, brow creasing as he looked the letter over. “She lost her husband and eldest son. There isn’t...there’s not much to say. To any of them. But it seems cruel to leave her with a black armband and naught else.”

The rest of the night was quiet, save for the scratching of Thorin’s pen on paper. There wasn’t much paper to be had, so of necessity the letters he drafted were brief. The crows who had come to pick clean the bones of their enemies also made obliging postmasters. Thorin sent twenty-five letters the first night. Fifty the second. The third, he only sent ten on his own. Frerin, tired of convalescing with nothing to do offered to lend a hand and a quill to the task and so sent twenty more letters of his own. Freya took care of the rest when Frerin had dropped off to sleep, and she noticed Thorin throwing aside paper that was too tear-stained to send.

“Go to bed,” Freya ordered him, though not harshly. “You realize this isn’t your responsibility, don’t you?”

“I do,” Thorin said, scrubbing hastily at his eyes. “But I think I must. Or someone ought to. And as I’ve not been badly hurt and I’ve no skill for healing, I thought I might as well.”

“Mm,” she hummed noncommitally. “Well. You might have done us a good turn. Lord Jur, of the Blue Mountains spoke very favorably of you to your father. Said he thought you were a considerate lad and that reflected well on us.”

“Oh?” Thorin asked, raising an eyebrow. “How did Adad take it?”

“Don’t give me that look,” Freya said a little sharply. “Very well, I’ll have you know. Said you were a good lad and fair with a quill so it was a decent job for you.”

Thorin’s expression did not clear; on the contrary, he looked even more skeptical. It was rare that Thorin was the subject of Thráin’s good opinion and it was even rarer that his father expressed approval to his face. Occasionally he was informed of some small nugget of praise in the course of a conversation to which he had not been privy. Udad was usually the catalyst, which, in spite of his grandfather’s good intentions, always made Thorin feel more self-conscious than good about himself. It was one thing to rarely hear his father speak of him in a complimentary way, but it was embarassing when compliments were given only after prompting.

“It’s a good thing you’re doing,” Freya said, belatedly, realizing Thorin thought she had spoken to him only to criticize. “Just because it isn’t your responsibility doesn’t mean I disapprove - by the Maker, child, you needn’t think you’re doing badly just because no one has told you you’re doing _well_. But, as it happens, courting Jur’s good opinion - ”

“I’m not trying,” Thorin muttered under his breath, “to court anyone’s - ”

“ - might be good for all of us, in the end,” Freya said. She drew closer and whispered, “If you breathe a word of this to anyone, I’ll take the strap to you, but your father is interested in establishing a settlement in the Blue Mountains. Balin settled upon him to invoke the ancient courtesy.”

Thorin blinked. What courtesy? Then he remembered his lessons - long ago and far away, but he remembered - that after Clan Longbeard had given shelter to the Broadbeams and Firebeards who fled their halls after the War of Wrath, that amity had ever been between their people and when the lords and ladies left Khazad-dûm to re-establish their homes in the West, they vowed that if ever occasion arose when they could repay the favor, they surely would.

“Does that hold?” Thorin asked. “Even now?”

“Balin thinks so,” Freya said. “And your father is willing to apply himself to them. And if Jur went so far as to pay you a compliment to your father’s face - which means he isn’t avoiding his company - we might have a chance there. But, as I said, take yourself to bed. I’ll carry on.”

Thorin went to bed, feeling a little strange, as if he was drunk though he’d not touched liquor in ages and ages. Settle? In the Blue Mountains. Though it had been his idea, it was only an idea. The thought that it might become reality...it made him feel as much despair as it did hope. They had wandered for so long that the idea of finally _stopping_ was a relief. But that meant their road was coming to an end. That they were not actually walking a curious route that would take them home. That they truly might not see Erebor again.

His thoughts were dark as he tossed and turned, unable to sleep though he was bone-weary. What was it all for? What had they fled for, fought for? If only it was a life forever in exile, was any of it worth it? Or might it not have been better for them all to be consigned to stone, like their long-lost family and friends who still lay buried in their abandoned city.

No, he remembered, temper flaring on his thin pallet, in his dreary tent. Not abandoned. _Invaded._

They had to go back, someday, he thought as he fell into an uneasy slumber. If he did not cling to that hope, he might never find reason to rise from his bedroll again.

* * *

 

Miles away, in the Ered Luin, the general air of sadness and mourning that had settled upon the Mountains like rain was broken by something unexpected - the arrival of letters. Dozens of letters. Unsolicited and, to many, unreadable.

“There’s no seal,” Víli said, searching the outside of the letter over and over, looking for the marks used to designate Firebeard and Broadbeam halls and holdings.

“Don’t be daft, ‘course there is,” Bofur said, referring to the seal that held the flaps of paper together. “You got eyes, haven’t you?”

“Aye, well, to speak _particularly_ , there’s no seal as I recognize - ooh, what if we hasn’t paid our fair share o’tax?” he asked, uncharacteristically worried. “That’d just be the last kick in the teeth, eh?”

“Shh!” Bofur exclaimed, clapping a hand over his cousin’s mouth. “You want to speak it true, eh? Careful with that tongue o’yours! You hasn’t opened it yet?”

“No, why?” Víli asked. “It’s a letter - that there’s Common speech and I can’t read that. Why, you opened yours?”

“Aye! ‘Course I did,” Bofur replied, as if it ought to be obvious. “I wanted to know what was inside!”

“And?” Víli prompted him.

Bofur suddenly looked a little chagrined. “Well. I don’t read no more nor you do, do I? ‘Sides if it were taxes, we’d have had a visit by now and had the kitchen table pawned for ready money. It was just a letter, looks like.”

“Have you got it?” Víli demanded.

“Open yours, if you’re so curious!”

“Nah,” he shook his head. “Not ‘til I know what it’s about.”

As it happened, Bofur did have the letter, he kept it tucked away in a hidden pocket in his coat. Bombur hadn’t seen it and he didn’t want his little brother asking him questions he couldn’t answer. Poor lad was already beside himself with worry for Bifur, who they knew had come away from the wars with an injury.

Still, he was better off than Uncle Fíli and Kíli. Auntie Varla had gone to bed when she got the news and hadn’t left the house since. Though he hadn’t asked, he had a feeling Víli hadn’t informed his mother of their surprise correspondence, same as he’d done with Bombur. Didn’t need to upset her with anything else.

The two cousins sat down in the shade of a tree - it was boiling hot that day and they’d not been too pleased to leave their place in the mines for the sunlight and heat of the out-of-doors. Víli’d only been working in the mines a year; he’d broken his indenture with a goldsmith once it was clear that the wars would drag on longer than they thought and it was better for his pocketbook to have a short apprenticeship in the mines than wait years and years to obtain his mastery. Turned out to have been the right choice, now that his Da and brother weren’t coming back.

Víli took the letter out of his cousin’s hand and his eyes roamed over the words without pausing to take them in. There were dark circles under his eyes and he was pale beneath his freckles. He’d not spoken of his Da or brother since he’d gotten the news. Bofur hadn’t tried to make him talk; he’d not been up for chatting after his own parents went to stone either.

“Ey!” Víli exclaimed suddenly. “You really _hasn’t_ got eyes! For it’s about Bifur!”

“What?” Bofur asked, snatching the letter back. “Where does it - why, I’ll be _damned_!”

For there, amid the script, was Bifur’s common name, sure enough. They might not have much education, but they knew enough to recognize that. “You got a shilling?” Bofur asked Víli.

“Nah, but me Mam might have a few stashed away,” Víli said. “I just...got to get it without troubling her.”

“Nay, don’t bother,” Bofur said. “Let’s hie to mine own home, I know where Bombur keeps his pin money, I’ll pay him back.”

At the local printer’s shop, there was usually someone on hand who would read a letter or a newspaper aloud for a few pennies. It was a service Bofur and Víli rarely had to employ since they rarely had to do any reading. If they had to sign or agree to anything in writing that pertained to work, someone from the Guild would read it out to them, but for personal matters, they were left to their own devices.

The two went to the printers’ directly, but found there was a queue - they were not the only dwarves to suddenly find themselves in receipt of messages about injured or fallen loved ones.

“I’ll do it for you gratis,” the printer said when it was finally Bofur’s turn. “For you’ve been honored - though you don’t know it yet.”

Bofur’s letter read:

**To Bofur Balurul and Bombur Balurul, kinsmen of Bifur Bilfurul,**

**It is my privilege to write to you of the condition and valor of your kinsman, who was injured in the final battle at the gates of Dwarrowdelf, against a legion of orcs. I did not fight beside him that day, but have accounts of him that do your family honor, for he fought ferociously and with great strength, felling many enemies and defending his comrades to the last.  
The blow which laid him low was an axe taken to the head. It cannot be removed, for fear that it would cause more damage than has already been inflicted. He was in great danger shortly after the battle, but the danger, I have been told, has passed. He has awakened since taking the blow. His strength is greatly depleted, but he improves steadily. He speaks only a little. When he is enough recovered to return, he will be borne back with the rest of his company. It is expected he will receive a full pension for his part in the fighting, I do not know whether he will return to his previous employment, which I have been informed was mining.**

**I met Bifur several times, though only once was our meeting of long duration. I found him to be kind, generous, and of a noble spirit. He treated my younger brother and sister especially dearly and spoke of you to them; he said that the sight of them reminded him powerfully of his younger cousins and that the thought of you lifted his spirits greatly before the fray began. Everyone who met him thought highly of him, he has been looked after with the tenderest of care and best of ministrations by the Healers who have tended him. I hope, ardently, that he recovers his full strength and that his homecoming will not be delayed long after this letter reaches you.**

**I am, with sincerity and respect,**

**Thorin Thráinul.**

Víli’s letter began much the same way:

**To Varla Fíliul and Víli Fíliul,**

**It is my privilege to write to you of the valor of your kinsmen, husband, son, and brother, Fíli Jíliul and Kíli Fíliul. I had not the honor of meeting them myself during the course of the wars, but it was said that both were the very souls of courage and comradeship. Mister Fíli was said to be a steady, jovial companion to those with whom he served, and took a special, fatherly interest in those dwarves younger than himself who volunteered and had no sire to guide them. To his own son he was no less attentive and Kíli, I heard it say, was as much a healer as he was a soldier. When he himself emerged from a skirmish unharmed, he would take himself to the bedsides of those who had not been so lucky and care for them, encourage them, and comfort them.**

**They fought in the same battalion at the battle at the gates of Dwarrowdelf, their courage high and their arms strong. Kíli was the first who fell, according to those among the battalion who remembered seeing him there. His pike sank into the breast of the creature who dealt the blow, ensuring that it would not rise to mete another like it. Mister Fíli, they said, had no knowledge of this; the two became separated. He was at a disadvantage, in the lowest part of the valley, but fought nearly to the very mouth of our ancient realm before a mattock in the head laid him down. They fell cleanly and quickly. They were burned, and I am so sorry for it. Heartily sorry, but there was no alternative; our enemy, though beaten back, might have been inclined to return, had we given the fallen all the ceremony and honor that was their due. They deserved to be consigned to stone with all glories; I do not know that there was a monument that could be constructed or even imagined that could properly do them homage.**

**Their pensions will be paid, in full to you, Missus Varla, as the recipient listed upon the contract. Any arms, armor or possessions that were their own will also be returned when the wounded among the company are deemed well enough to travel.**

**My own father and brother fought in that same battle. My brother was badly injured but will recover. Though I cannot claim the depth of your grief, I had a taste of it. You have my profoundest sympathies; I am very sorry.**

**I am, with sincerity and respect,**

**Thorin Thráinul.**

“Could you read it again?” Víli asked, his voice subdued and unnaturally quiet. The printer complied and he nodded when all was done. “Thanks. Want to tell it back to me Ma, ‘specially the last bit. Nice fellow, Thorin Thráinul.”

“Thoughtful,” Bofur agreed. “Awfully thoughtful. Good of him. Aye, nice fellow. He a captain, or suchlike?”

The printer blinked at them. “Beg pardon?”

“It was good of him to write such - awfully good - ” Víli repeated, thinking that the printer must be a trifle hard of hearing. “But who is he?”


	4. Chapter 4

They would move West. That was what had been decided, at last. Those who could would depart with the Broadbeam and Firebeard caravans and begin the long journey to their range. The pensioners were the only group who would have to journey to the Iron Hills. Dáin, recovered enough to take part in the negotiations on his grandfather’s behalf - much aided by Nar, it must be said - agreed to pay out the pensions owed the permanently maimed from his grandfather’s coffers. 

Never a whisper was raised that Grór mightn’t agree to such a scheme - they were Longbeard soldiers, after all. And besides, there was the question of his already tarnished reputation. 

“He’d never object to paying out the wounded,” Gróin declared confidently as the wagons were readied for travel. “Not when he couldn’t raise his sword arm and take to the fray. Even _he_ wouldn’t be so dishonored.”

“Keep your voice down!” his wife Maeva shushed him. “Or do you want Dáin to get word?”

Gróin ignored her. “Oh, that lad understands as well as anyone - better than some! For he’s got a leg missing to show for this adventure while his grandfather sits upon his armchair with his books and maps and _that’s_ as much as he’ll see of the world outside his halls!”

“Aye,” Thráin cut in, stone-faced and cross. “But he’s halls, hasn’t he? Somewhere to go _back_ to.”

“Don’t you start,” Gróin said warningly. “It’s shameful, it’s a cowardly house he defends and everyone knows it! I’d rather wander the world over for the sake of Erebor than settle down in that quiet heap of rubble and ore that _shite_ hides away in!”

Gróin was not alone in his opinions. Many a time Thráin or Thorin or some other member of Thrór’s house bade a farewell to those who could not come West, the children who’d lost both their parents, the dwarves who were only just out of danger, missing arms and eyes, and limbs. But with their feeble strength, those brave, injured dwarves would clutch at their rulers and look at them with firey eyes and determined features. 

“Remember me when the Mountain is reclaimed,” they begged. “I’ll not stay in the Iron Hills ‘til the world is re-Made. Remember me, for my loyalty has ever been with you.”

Thráin thanked them for their fealty and bid them good-journey as kindly as he was able, nervously extricating himself from their anxious hands. Thorin behaved in much the same way, but with one notable exception. “I surely will,” he promised, giving their hands and shoulders an earnest squeeze. “I swear it.”

They were being moved out of necessity - one of the conditions of their settlement was that no Longbeard refugee would be the recipient of public funds from the Blue Mountains. And Thráin simply had no money saved up; the war had been a costly effort and every spare coin had gone into maintaining and provisioning their army. He had nothing left to support his people and well he knew it; Thráin’s keen knowledge of figures was one of the reasons that the final negotiations had come to a successful end. 

Respect for Thráin’s father, a long-standing promise to Clan Longbeard and even a soft-hearted regard for Thorin’s thoughtfulness did not stand up well against hard facts. If the Longbeard occupation would make the native population suffer deprivations of any sort, it could not be permitted to occur. They could establish businesses - would _have_ to establish businesses to survive, but must provide funds for their own lodgings, clothes, and food. They would not be permitted to take lodgings in the interior of the Mountain for they could claim membership in no local Guilds that would provide housing. 

It was a different range than Erebor. There, dwarves who so chose to have their wages thus garnished in their contracts could live in housing provided by their Guild, generally close to their place of employment. All the Guilds provided for such, being that the Mountain herself was a single peak, it was more than feasible. But the Blue Mountains were much diminished from the Kingdoms they once held. The settlements were scattered into villages that bled into the Mannish valleys in and around the peaks. Various Lords and Ladies claimed ownership of different mines and were patrons of different businesses, their Guilds answered to diverse authority, they did not have final recourse to bring their troubles to one Monarch alone. The tax system, Thráin privately grumbled to his wife, was a disaster, as far as he could tell. On the one hand, he thought it best that his people stay well out of it. On the other, not actually being citizens of the Blue Mountains, but guests, though they would not suffer any of the disadvantages of living in the Blue Mountains, they would not enjoy any advantages.

Whatever the muddle that was the tax code of the Ered Luin, Thráin would never see a penny of it. He could establish no tariffs, nor collect anything from his subjects to be redistributed to the Longbeard population. Any taxes they paid, be they gone in for rents, or goods, or services, would go to the treasury of the Mountain. And if there was any money to be paid for the upkeep of those less fortunate Longbeard guests, it would come from Thráin’s own pocket.

It was why the decision had been forced, at long last, to separate those dwarves too injured to find steady work; if they had not, the entire endeavor would have been doomed to failure from the start. As it stood, their chances for long-term habitation seemed impossibly steep; they had to find employment for all those dwarves who were work-ready and off age, apprenticeships for the young ones and food and shelter enough for all. 

“We’ll find ourselves a smithy, it’s our craft, and - I don’t think I overstate the matter - there’s not a Broadbeam metalworker alive in this Age who can best an Erebor-trained weaponsmith,” Thráin informed his sons. 

“How many Erebor-trained smiths have we got?” Thorin asked, looking doubtfully at Frerin.

His brother did not miss his sidelong glance, “Ey! I’m trained _by_ smiths _from_ Erebor,” he pointed out. “Good enough for most, eh?”

“It’d stand up in court,” Balin shrugged. “I’ve some skill as a book-mender. Or I could apply to the scriptorium. My script is decent - ”

“Your illuminations are rubbish,” Dwalin piped up, unhelpfully. 

“Then I shall content myself with transcribing court records,” Balin said placidly. “Between the two of us, we can likely scrape together enough money - one room with a fire would do nicely - “

It seemed it was not Balin’s day to be allowed to finish a sentence.

“What are you talking about?” Freya asked sharply. “You’ll be lodging with _us_ , of course.”

Dwalin seemed to take the news as a matter of course, but Balin only looked at her a little strangely. “My Lady - ”

“Oh, by Durin’s beard,” Freya rolled her eyes. And, for good measure, swatted Balin’s arm. “You only ever call me ‘my lady’ when you’re about to argue with me, but in this case, laddie, I’ve got the upper hand - we’ve _five_ stout dwarves in this family and you and your brother ought to simply take lodgings with _us_. We’ll be able to find a nice, roomy hovel. Why, if we’re very lucky, we might even have three _whole_ rooms, just to ourselves!”

It was difficult, sometimes, to determine just how much of Freya’s speech was pure sarcasm and how much was genuine, but on the point of taking lodgings together she seemed set.

“As I recall,” Balin replied delicately, “you among all of us were offered rooms in the Mountain proper - “

“Hang it,” Thráin grunted. “Don’t be daft, Balin. We’re not going to take a suite of fine chambers and leave everyone else to cobble together thatched roofs.”

From the skeptical expression on Balin’s face it seemed that, were he in Thráin’s place, he would not be so quick to refuse a generous offer made by the foreign Lords and Ladies. “But it would place you closer to the seat of politics - ”

“And why would I want that?” Thráin scoffed. “So I can walk about within stone walls and have it impressed upon me just how _much_ power I ceded? Nah, give me a peat fire and shuttered windows that look out on fields any day over that.”

“You can’t expect to gain influence outside the range, in some dismal little valley,” Balin complained, a bit of his genteel facade beginning to crack, revealing the annoyance within. “Influence you might use to _help_. By the Maker, Thráin, you can’t just wallow in misery and expect that’ll do us any good.”

“Watch it,” Thráin replied, testily. “I don’t _intend_ to, you insufferable brat.”

With his grey hair and air of intelligence, Balin always seemed to project the image of being older than he was. It was always a minor shock to him when someone put him in his place and reminded him that there were dwarves here who’d known him since he was in swaddling. With Fundin gone, it seemed the task would fall to Thráin. 

“I will attend council sessions and the courts, when I can,” Thráin continued, more patiently than was his wont, as if scolding Balin was a sort of release for his temper. “But I’ve got to work, haven’t I? It’s more important that the people _eat_ that that we try to influence a range we’ve no claim over.”

“We can all work,” Frerin added, striking a ridiculous pose, wheeling his arms about before settling into a muscle-flexing posture that put Dís in stitches. “I’m fully recovered! A boon to you all!”

“You’re recovered,” Thráin agreed, then returned to his business of lashing a tarp over the goods in the carts. 

“I don’t think it’s a bad thing,” Thorin said to Balin later, when the moon was high and the rest of the family and sought their beds early - pallets under open sky. If they hadn’t been so exhausted from their grief and their labors, they would likely have preferred to travel all night than sleep thus exposed. Those of the Guard who remained, including Balin and Thorin, kept up a heavy watch. “We don’t want to get comfortable. We don’t want to _stay_.”

“You talk as if we’re going to retake Erebor tomorrow,” Balin shook his head, as if Thorin was out of his senses.

“Obviously not,” he huffed. “No. No, of _course_ not. But someday. It’s got to be done _someday_.”

Balin paused and looked at him. Looked _through_ him and Thorin stilled under the scrutiny. What did Balin see? A young prince, lost and afraid, clinging to the last shred of his grandfather’s hope? Or a warrior, staunch and determined, with an unquenchable fire in his gut?

Thorin twitched a bit and finally, Balin saw only his cousin who disliked being too closely stared at. He pursed his lips and seemed about to speak - but whatever he was going to say he thought better of it and continued his rounds. 

“Let’s just get through tomorrow,” Balin said, a quarter of an hour later, when the conversation was half-forgotten. Let’s get to the Blue Mountains. Let’s find _work_ in the Blue Mountains. And attend to the rest later.”

Dís, as was her wont, tended to ask a lot of questions, very quietly throughout the day when she was nervous. 

“We’re going to _live_ there, then?” she asked as the caravans started their lurching march West. She had been present at so many disembarkings in her young life that this seemed routine - but the fact that when they arrived at their destination, they would be _staying_ , really staying, was not. “In a proper dwelling and everything.”

“We are!” Frerin exclaimed. “Among the Broadbeams and all - and the Firebeards too, but they’re so well inter-married that you can only tell them apart by the color of their hair.”

“Not that I’d try,” Thorin said warningly. 

“Oh, aye, that’d be a mistake,” Dwalin agreed. “Look at Glóin. Red-haired as any, but damn you of you don’t call him ‘Longbeard.’”

“Not that his beard’s so long as all that!” Frerin said, loudly and pointedly, for Glóin was trailing along some yards behind. “Fluffy-beard, maybe. Wee-bitty-as-can’t-hold-a-braid-beard - ”

“Shut _up_ , Frerin!” Glóin shouted, managing to be heard over the stomping of boots and the creak of wagon wheels; no easy feat. “You’ve hardly got any beard to speak of!”

“Aye, but you _can_ speak of it!” Frerin shot back, tugging at the short strands on his chin; all of Durin’s folk had cut their beards short after Thrór fell; for some it was a greater sacrifice than others. 

Thorin swatted at his hands, “Stop it.”

Frerin gave Thorin a side-long glance, hesitating for the length of time it took for him to decided whether he ought to heed him or not. Shorn beards were no laughing matter, after all, and it was far too soon for Frerin to make a mockery of them. But then, when had Frerin ever let something as silly as custom prevent him from having sport with his brother?

“Don’t worry, nadad,” he said, rubbing his hands over Thorin’s cheeks before giving him a smacking kiss on the nose. “You’re as ugly as ever!”

“Don’t you feel _too_ puffed up,” Thorin replied sternly, giving Frerin’s nose a flick. “For you look just like me.”

“Not so!” Frerin replied, clutching his heart in horror. “Never! I’m _far_ handsomer!”

Of the two of them, it was said, in muttered tones with sidelong glances that poor Thorin and Frerin had not only been mined from an unfortunate-looking ore, they were chiseled with the ugliest tools on the Maker’s belt as well. And of the pair of them, if one was forced to declare which cut the better figure, it would have to be Thorin. Their branch of Durin’s line tended toward high foreheads, pointy chins and skinny noses, but while something of Thorin’s brow had a touch of nobility to it, Frerin’s face was even longer, his features even skinnier. There was hope they’d both turn out well, but as it stood, Thorin was in his nineties and seemed resigned to his fate, while Frerin, coming up on seventy-five, probably ought to accept that he’d never be thought good-looking by anyone other than his sister. Even their own mother admitted that her children were better admired for their brains (Thorin), humor (Frerin), or disposition (Dís) than anything else. 

“But the Blue Mountains,” Dís pressed on when all was quiet. “Are they...what are they like?”

“Don’t know” Frerin replied airily. “Never been, myself, have you, Thorin?”

“You know I haven’t,” Thorin said. “Udad only ventured so far West on a few occasions...he said the beer was good.”

“Can’t go by that,” Dwalin shook his head sadly. “Uncle Thrór liked _all_ beer, he was no true judge.”

“It’s a scattered kingdom,” Thorin told Dís. “Not like Erebor. There are little...principalities, cities and villages strewn all about, some on the sea - we’re not going there, though, we’re staying much further inland, just where the range begins. That’s where Gabilgathol was, remember from lessons? Not exactly near, but close enough. The Eastern-most peaks is where we’re bound, I’ve heard from some of the Broadbeam soldiers that there’s a fair city under the village in the peaks overlooking the countryside.”

“And we’re going to live in the village?” Dís asked.

“We’re going to try to,” Frerin answered cheerfully. “Or else, bed down with the cows!”

Dís wrinkled her nose, “Not really - _not_ really, Thorin?”

“Not really,” Thorin assured her. “We’ll find lodgings sooner or later, lass, I’m sure.”

She seemed satisfied for the moment and they plodded along in silence for a while. Thorin and Dwalin pulled ahead to relieve the horsemasters and Dís found herself walking alongside Frerin in solitude. She reached out and tugged his sleeve, beckoning him to lower his head so she could whisper in his ear.

“Will we make friends there?” she asked, anxiously.

“Oh, lass,” Frerin said, grabbing her round the shoulders and squeezing her tight. “You will! Maybe not our grumpy bastard of an elder brother, but you surely will! More friends than you’ll know what to do with! Just you wait.”


	5. Chapter 5

The forge he’d found had been some years abandoned; it was at the furthest end of the high street heading out of town and the feature that most recommended it was the chimney; to be specific, the fact that it _had_ a chimney that required only a bit of patching and a great deal of cleaning.

“Too bad we none of us went in for masonry,” Frerin said when first he’d spied it. “Nor brick-making. Or is it meant to only have three walls?”

“We could just tack up an awning, have a nice counter,” Dwalin pointed out. “Makes us look friendly.”

“Aye, but it’s Thorin’s face that they’ll see behind the counter,” Frerin pointed out, shaking his head sadly. “Not even the merriest counter in world could make up for _that._ ”

“It’s true,” Thorin agreed. “I’ll have to hide out in the back. You and Dís can do all the talking.”

Frerin swore he would hold Thorin to it, while their sister expressed her doubts that she would make the best face of the forge, having taken her elder brother at his word. Thorin smiled and squished her face between both his hands. 

“Ah, but you’re a bonny lass,” he said, smiling and kissing her nose. “Who could say no to a price quoted from this sweet face?”

“Adad,” Dís and Frerin said at the same time, Dwalin laughed, but Thorin rolled his eyes and shook his head. 

“Nah, you’re his favorite,” he informed his sister. “Everyone knows it.”

Thráin was not with them, which is why his children felt free to talk about him so openly. He and his wife (with Balin thrown in for luck) had gone to the interior of the Mountain to plead their case for continued residence. The children were tasked with making the forge workable while they were gone, which was both a practical use of their time and a demonstration of their commitment to finding work for themselves in the West. If the children of Thráin, the Longbeard King could prove their industrious, they could be held up as an example for the noble Firebeards and Broadbeam lords and ladies who remained skeptical to their residence and they could serve as an inspiration to their people.

But first there was the matter of the forge itself. 

It was difficult to tell, as Frerin had asked, whether or not the crumbling masonry round the front had always been intended to serve as an entryway or had simply become one through years of neglect. The wide door on the side (clearly meant to _be_ a doorway, anyway, since there were rusty brackets that had once held hinges) seemed to indicate the latter was the case. The walls were black with soot and green with moss; the whole of the Ered Luin was a vibrant green, which seemed to undercut the name. The roof wanted some attention to keep the rain and damp out; apparently the weather was extremely changeable in these parts, a sunny day just as likely to be washed out by rain as a dreary day was to be scorched by sun. And they would be doing much of their living out of doors. 

For a time, the foursome simply stared at the forge, each one wondering where to begin. Luckily, Thorin took the lead before they stood so long they got mossy themselves. 

“Right,” he said briskly. “Dís and I’ll go to the river to fetch some water and get to scrubbing. Dwalin, see about removing the rusty hinges and worst of the stones to shore up that wall. Frerin, tend to the roof. We’ll tackle the chimney last of all.”

Everyone was in agreement - save Frerin. 

“How come I’m to climb the roof?” he asked, eyeing it dubiously. “Why not Dwalin, he’s taller?”

“You’re lighter,” Dwalin and Thorin chorused together. 

“Dís is lightest of all!” Frerin complained.

“Aye, but she’s coming with me,” Thorin said. “So there you are.”

“There I am,” Frerin grumbled, then pointed to the stones of the forge floor. “And _there_ I’ll be when I take a tumble and splatter my poor brains all over - and what a job of scrubbing you’ll have then!”

If he expected this prediction to win him sympathy, he was sorely mistaken. All he got was a pat of the arm from Dís and an assurance for Dwalin (which did not seem at _all_ sincere) that if he fell, Dwalin would try to catch him. If he wasn’t too busy with anything else. 

The shingles were of slate and while certain sections held well, others were badly cracking and crumbling, some breaking apart in Frerin’s hands as he went about testing them for strength.

“Who’d Ada buy this off of?” he called down to Dwalin. “A Man?”

“Don’t know, didn’t ask,” Dwalin replied. “Got it for a song, I heard.”

“Don’t be thick, Ada doesn’t sing,” Frerin shouted back. And, honestly, he wasn’t sure the place was worth even _that_ much effort. Unless the chimney was good and the bellows still worked, as he’d been told. Thráin was a dwarf with a good idea of the value of things, but even he’d been reduced to such circumstances that he’d take what he could get. 

Despite Thorin’s saying they could leave the chimney for last, Frerin couldn’t resist taking a little peek. Just to see what they were dealing with. 

What they were dealing with was a nesting sparrow who did not appreciate suddenly coming nose-to-beak with a curious dwarrowlad. The bird let out a shrill trilling sound and flew right at him, prompting Frerin to let out a similar shriek and, fulfilling his own personal prediction, go tumbling right off the roof. 

Luck was on his side, however. He did not land on the floor of the forge, but in an obliging hawthorn bush. Dwalin, calm as you please, poked his head outside to check on the ruckus. 

“Alright?” he asked, carelessly.

Frerin, face scratched and expression murderous shook an accusing fist at Dwalin. “Where were you? You said you’d rescue me!”

“Aye, but you didn’t need rescuing, did you?” Dwalin asked, nodding at the bush. “Got yourself a nice, soft landing.”

“I’ll give you soft,” Frerin growled, wriggling to free himself from the tangle of limbs.

Dwalin only watched him, a smile playing round his mouth.

“Well, come _on_!” Frerin yelped as his twisting only served to make his shirt catch on the branches. “Give a lad a hand!”

“Go on, where are your manners?” Dwalin teased; having not been blessed with a younger sibling himself and fancying that he’d make an excellent elder brother, Dwalin often used up this unspent energies on Frerin. Being already possessed of an older brother, it was an attention Frerin thought he could well do without. 

“Dwalin!” he shouted, trying for stern, but coming across only as pathetic. Dwalin took pity on him and hauled him out, plucking leaves from his hair as he did. 

“Well, you look a sight,” he said critically. “I’ve half a mind not to send you to town.”

“Why am I going to town?” Frerin asked, a whinge building up in the back of his throat. Ages ago, it was commonly believed that drawing one’s first blood in battle would mark a dwarf as a true adult, free of childish behavior or any of the immature tendencies common among dwarflings. Clearly, whoever had dreamed up such wisdom had never chanced to encounter a Frerin in their lives or they would have been quite dismayed. 

Patiently, Dwalin explained that he’d have to make up some mortar; most of the stones were good enough to re-lay, but it was a job that couldn’t be begun until he had something to bind them. And the purchasing of materials was evidently going to fall to Frerin. 

“But - ” Frerin began, though he did not get far before he was interrupted by Dwalin.

“Do you want to get back on the roof?” he asked.

“No,” Frerin admitted sullenly. And so he took the coin Dwalin shook into his hands and went on his merry way. 

In many ways, this village was just like so many of the Mannish settlements that Frerin had seen in their wanderings days. Many of the shops had above-ground entrances, though they continued deeper into the earth. The high street was packed dirt and, as he heard tell, the markets for the villagers were held out-of-doors under awnings, tents, or blue skies. It all seemed very uncivilized. 

Granted, Frerin really didn’t have much of a leg to stand on when it came to civility. His hair was bound back simply, his beard (well, such beard as he boasted) was hastily shorn to a proper mourning length, but it was a bit of a rush job. His tunic was filthy and his boots badly needed re-soling...actually, he really just needed new boots as his toes were pushing rather insistently against the leather. He was a shorn, sad, sloppy sight indeed - but he thought he’d look rather better amid the rosy glow of torchlight rather than the harsh glare of the morning sun. 

He’d only need to buy a few things - they could procure sand from an obliging riverbank and he’d passed by all the ingenious little contraptions for mixing without looking twice at them. They couldn’t afford much more than a shovel and spade themselves and their arms were strong enough to make a quick job of it. There were still a few coins clanking together against his leg when he caught a whiff of something that smelled absolutely _delicious_.

Garlic, he was sure. Onion. Perhaps - or had he only imagined it? - _cinnamon_?

His nose was his guide and it led him directly to a shop with a simply carved wooden sign over the door featuring a loaf of bread. A bakery, obviously, but even if he wound up in some poor unsuspecting matron’s parlor, the scent would have had him opening the door regardless of whether he was meant to be there or not.

There was quite a bit of bustle inside, dwarves crammed here and there staring at countertops, talking over one another as they had their orders taken. Frerin stood stock-still for a moment, taking it all in. Oh, aye, there were loves aplenty, wheat, rye, even a few (on the highest shelves away from sticky fingers) made of white flour and air, apparently, for how light and soft they looked. 

Yet he had only one object and that was the _pile_ of meat pies that were rapidly dwindling behind the counter as they were handed out by the fistful to the customers. Thick rolled crusts, stuffed with pork and potatoes and currents and raisins and heavily scented with sage and cinnamon and clove and either there was a hole in the roof or he was drooling all over the floor.

The wars had stretched their already thin rations to practically nil. Hardtack and, if they were lucky, porridge flavored with honey they managed to pilfer off of bees. Frerin couldn’t remember when he’d last had an actual spice graze his tongue, save a bit of salt jerky. And then to find himself in the midst of such abundance...ooh, where was Nori, his favorite little tart-pilferer when he needed him?

The coins in his pocket suddenly felt _very_ heavy. But then, they weren’t his, were they? They were Dwalin’s, likely come by having volunteered to do a heavy job in one of the towns they passed through. Or worse - a remnant of the money he’d made selling off his father’s armor to the dwarves of the Iron Hills. He absolutely could _not_ spend it without permission. 

But all his better convictions began to fall away when a piping little voice called out, “And for you, sir?”

He whipped around and found himself being addressed by a plump little miss with sharp grey eyes that seemed a trifle too intent for such a sweet-looking face. 

“Oh,” she said, tone flattening a bit. “You’re not a sir. What’ll you have?”

“Beg pardon,” Frerin said, straightening up to his not inconsiderable height. “What’s that?”

“It’s only you’re awfully tall I took you for a dwarf of-age,” she explained matter-of-factly. “But I’ll bet you’re no older than me sister and _she’s_ not a ma’am.”

“Oh?” Frerin asked, raising an eyebrow and trying to look insulted. “And what do you know of it? Suppose I’m all of ninety-five?”

“Then you’ve got a poorly grown beard,” the little girl said and seemed about to go one describing Frerin’s other lacking attributes when a sharply voiced, “ _Myra_ ” stilled her tongue.

“You’ve no manners! None at all! That’s no way to talk to someone!” Another dwarrowdam, but still quite young for all that rapped her sharply on the back of the head. The blow did little to quell the dwarfling’s temper, for she stamped the older girl on the foot then, before she could be reprimanded further, ducked around her and took off at a clip for the back of the shop.

The elder girl seemed torn before going after her and tending to Frerin, but as _she_ seemed possessed of manners (or at least of business sense) she turned toward Frerin with a tight smile. “Sorry. I’ve said me Mam and Da oughtn’t let her talk to customers, only they got it in their heads as she’s sweet.”

Frerin snorted, “Seems it - how’s your foot?”

“It’ll heal,” she rolled her eyes and her smile became a bit friendlier. “What’ll it be, then? I’ll toss in a free turnover for the insult you was paid.”

“I’ll not say no - er…” Frerin felt around in his pocket and removed a few pennies. Just a few. Dwalin’d never notice. “How much for a meat pie?”

“Thruppence’ll get you one,” she said, “And five for a shilling.”

He had a shilling. He definitely had a shilling. And it _was_ a bargain, at that.

“Five’ll do me,” he said at last, returning the pennies and replacing them with silver. He’d just...wait until Dwalin noticed it was gone. That’d take a day or two. And coins fell out of pockets all the time, maybe he’d get lucky and just _find_ one. 

“And the turnover,” she added. “Blackberry sound about right?”

“Sounds _just_ right,” Frerin said gratefully. “Thanks, awfully. You know, she wasn’t _that_ bad.”

“You haven’t got to live along of her,” the lass said as she retrieved Frerin’s order. “And anyhow...you look as if you need it. Come in out o’the wars, have you?”

“Ah...I have,” Frerin said, a trifling awkwardly. An errant thought flickered through his mind that if he untied his tunic and showed off the puckered pink scar on his chest he _might_ get another turnover for his trouble, but thought better of it. For some reason, almost as soon as the notion had popped into his mind, he got a strong sense that Thorin would disapprove and he didn’t want to have it out with his brother over a blackberry pie. 

“Thanks to you for your service,” she said respectfully. “When we first heard tell of the battle...well, I got to say, we was surprised so many came back as did.”

“Mmm,” Frerin said, doing his very best Thorin impression. Mouth shut. Eyes down. And slouch; no need for anyone to find out exactly who they were. It was no secret that the feelings of the common folk toward Clan Longbeard were not exactly charitable. And he’d already given her the shilling, it wouldn’t do at all for his stolen money to yield no food if she took it all back and ordered him out of the shop.

His reticence had the desired effect. Not all dwarves boasted of their success in battle, even after an ordinary skirmish. And the fight at Azanulbizar had been far from ordinary. 

“Well, thank you anyhow, from me heart,” she said as she relinquished the pastry. “None of ours went off to fight; I’m the eldest and I’ve only just gone seventy-one and me Mam and Da was excused on account o’there being six of us children to mind.”

 _That_ loosened Frerin’s tongue. “Six?” he spluttered. “Muhudel! My own parents have _three_ and they’re considered a hundred times blessed - well, by other people. If you ask them, we’re as much a burden as a blessing.”

“Oh, that can’t be so,” she waved a hand dismissively. “Which are you, then? Of the three?”

“Middle,” he said. “One elder brother, one younger sister. He’s perfect, she’s delightful. And I’m...there.”

“Ah, see, that’s Myra’s trouble,” the girl said in a confidential tone. “She’s third up from the bottom and makes herself a reputation by being awful. I’m glad your own wee sister chooses to be a delight instead.”

“She’s not so wee,” Frerin said, “She’s only ten years under you...but then, she’s never had an awful stage. So there mightn’t be hope for your sister. Dís was born a delight and so remains one to this day, it’s the ore she was mined from, I suppose.”

“And we none of us can help how we’re Made,” the girl said, with a nod of her head, as if she and Frerin were both being exceptionally wise. “Anyhow, that’s you done, I hope you like ‘em.”

“I’m _sure_ I will,” he said, giving the bag an appreciative sniff.

“Are they all for you?” she asked, looking Frerin over a little doubtfully. 

He gave the bag a long, contemplative look. “Hmm. They probably shouldn’t be, should they?”

“Not ‘less you want a bellyache,” she advised. “And it’d be generous of you to share. ‘Specially since you got yourself a delightful sister. At least give her a taste.”

“A taste,” Frerin agreed, nodding. “Possibly even a bite - thanks very much, miss. You know, that sister of yours could learn a thing or two from you.”

“I tell her so every day, but she’ll never listen,” the girl shook her head with a smile. “Take care of yourself, now - hope to see you in again!”

“I hope to _be_ in again,” Frerin said and waved on his way out the door. The hope was a sincere one. He had every reason to believe that if Dwalin found out about that missing shilling, he might not be moving anywhere under his own power for a _very_ long time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, I know Frerin's a sneaky little thief, but PASTRY is delicious.


	6. Chapter 6

Turned out, Frerin needn’t have worried about Dwalin at all. The pasties were _so_ good and their tongues had been so deprived of food made by a skilled hand that he gobbled up one the moment Frerin opened the sack and then spent the rest of the day looking wistfully at the others as if he wished he’d taken his time. 

Even Thorin was so overcome (or merely starving, it was hard to tell) that he’d got halfway through his pie before he said, “Where’d you get these?”

“Bakery in the village,” Frerin said, nodding vaguely back down the high street. “It wasn’t my fault, really, I was walking back, minding my own business when I just got _dragged_ in by the smell. You can’t blame me.”

“Mmph,” Thorin said, which Frerin took to mean, ‘I understand completely, brother, your actions were not your own.’ 

“How many did you get? Dís asked. She was the most prudent of all of them, taking tiny bites of her pie to make it last as long as possible; she was only a quarter done and Frerin, who had eaten all of his serving on the way back, had to clasp his hands behind his back to keep from snatching hers. 

“Five,” he said. “One of each of us with one to split - or battle over, I’m not above scuffling for it. Oh! And a blackberry tart. Which I’m also not above scuffling over.”

Dwalin gave Frerin a considering look, apparently very willing to beat his beloved cousin to a pulp if it meant another tart, but before he could come close enough to take a swing at him, Thorin shattered all their hopes by saying the most Thorinish thing he possibly could:

“We ought to save them for someone else,” he said. “Ama and Ada, probably. It’s been a long day...where was the shop? I could get another for Balin. But then, that doesn’t seem fair, no one else at camp’ll - ”

“Now don’t bankrupt yourself buying treats for all the camp,” Dwalin advised him. “I’ll not say no to saving one for your Ma and Da, but Balin can get his own pie, if he’s of a mind to.”

“Or we could eat the lot now,” Frerin interjected. “And save you all the beard-wringing of deciding who ought to get what. Anyway, I don’t think Ada even _likes_ pie.”

“He’d like that one,” Thorin said, cocking his head and looking at Frerin curiously. “Why wouldn’t he?”

Frerin shrugged, “It’s only that he doesn’t like anything - save Dís, of course, his favorite child - and I don’t see why he’d make an exception for pie.”

“Pie’s about the only thing he’d make an exception for,” Thorin replied. “Save, of course, Dís, his favorite child.”

“Favorite _daughter_ ,” she corrected them with a small smile. “And as I’m the only one he’s got, I have to be the favorite.”

Their spirits were much improved and they worked efficiently and cheerfully through the afternoon, Thorin and Dwalin concentrating on their amateur masonry efforts while Dís and Frerin tidied up, scrubbing the walls and floors free of soot, dirt, dust, and old filings. 

“That forge…” Thorin began, eyeing the chimney and the bellows critically, but Dwalin shook his head. 

“Sun’s gone down, I think we’ve done all we can for the day,” he said. “Tomorrow we can buy a bit of lumber for a countertop and awning. Where’s my change, Frerin?”

Frerin turned the _tiniest_ bit white and started fumbling round in his pockets, but was saved by the sound of a low whistle behind him. 

“That’s not a bad day’s work,” Thráin said, squinting round the smithy, evidently trying to find something to criticize and coming up short.

“Not a bad heap of stones, Da!” Frerin exclaimed, bounding over to meet him. He made an expansive gesture to show off his hard work and added, “You might’ve gotten your money’s worth, in the end!”

Then, for good measure, Frerin flung his arm around his father’s shoulder and gave him a kiss on the cheek. Thráin bore up against it admirably, only rolling his eye and gently shoving Frerin off with a muttered, “Honestly, lad.”

“How’d it go?” Thorin asked cautiously. “With the lords and ladies. You were gone an age.”

“Aye, I was,” Thráin said, running a hand over his hair tiredly, a habitual gesture that bespoke exhaustion. “But it was all for a good cause. Ironing out a settlement plan that will work for the benefit of our people without overtaxing the residents of the Blue Mountains.”

He spoke the words with his habitual quiet, plodding tone of voice, not a trace of excitement or pleasure behind them. Because of that, it took a moment for the significance of what he said to register. Dís was the first one who caught on.

“We’re to _stay_?” she asked, tone incredulous and eyes full of hope. “Really stay?”

Thráin almost smiled. “Aye, lass. Really stay.”

With a whoop of excitement she ran to her father and threw her arms round his neck, giving him twice as enthusiastic a kiss as Frerin had done. This time, there was no shaking off, Thráin returned the embrace and patted the back of her head. “Now, we won’t be living in a palace, mind - ”

“Who cares?” Frerin asked, grin lighting up his features. “Who _cares_? We’ll have a roof and all! Honestly, I was planning on bedding down here, in this windowless shack, for at least it’d keep the rain off me and Thorin’s elbows out of my face!”

Thorin and Dwalin were a little less robust in their enthusiasm. Dwalin let out a bit of a breath and nodded, a thoughtful look on his face that could have meant anything. Thorin, oddly, looked as if he was about to cry, but quickly suffocated the expression under a learned neutrality.

“Where’s Ama?” he asked, ignoring Frerin’s repeated complaints about his bony elbows. 

“Gone back to the camp to tell the people,” Thráin said. “We’ll get the neediest settled first - the wounded, anyone with little children. Then we’ll see to ourselves. There’s flats to rent not far from here, closer to the village proper. Might have to go aboveground - ”

“ _Walls_ ,” Frerin reminded him, since it seemed like half his family were determined to be dismal about this wonderful development. “A _roof_. Let’s not lose sight of that, eh? And a hearth, I’ll bet!”

“A hearth, but don’t bet on a stove,” Thráin cautioned. “They don’t come furnished, round here.”

“I don’t _care_!” Frerin cried in a sing-song tone. “Don’t care. Don’t _care_! Don’t _ca-a-a-a-are_!”

Thorin clamped a hand over his mouth to make him stop. “You will when it’s your turn to cook up sommat edible.”

“Nah!” Frerin wriggled away. “Not me! For I found the sweetest little bakeshop, didn’t I? I won’t have to put food to fire again, if I can help it. When the task falls to me, I’m ordering out!”

“What bakeshop?” Thráin asked, rounding on Frerin with a narrowed gaze that was not altogether pleased. “If I hear you’ve been spending our coin on sweets while the rest of the camp chokes down - ”

“It was my money, sir,” Dwalin said, coming to Frerin’s rescue, with one arm slung round his shoulder and a casual air about him. “I sent him off to fetch us something to eat. Had a bit left over...Iron Hills money, you know?”

Thráin _did_ know and his expression darkened as he turned his wrath on Dwain. “Foolish way to spend your money,” he growled. “And damned disrespectful. And for _you_ to go along with this scheme - ”

“Frerin didn’t know where it came from - anyway, it’s mine, isn’t it?” Dwalin replied, again keeping his tone of voice carefully moderated, as if they were just having a bit of a disagreement about whether Dwalin ought to have taken his porridge with honey or jam. As if Thráin wasn’t inches away from damning Dwalin’s name to oblivion and his bones to chalk. 

“Yours,” Thráin said, looking Dwalin up and down, disgust clear on his face. “Aye. A pittance. You should have saved it.”

“Aye, probably,” Dwalin shrugged. “But that’s past now. Anyway, some good came of it - Thorin and I were able to patch up that wall, as you saw.”

“Mmm,” Thráin huffed, evidently not so pleased now that he discovered that his smithy wall had been repaired with money from the sale of Fundin’s armor. “Ask your brother next time before you spend that coin.”

“I took from my own share, but I’ll take that under advisement,” Dwain said diplomatically. Why they’d brought grumpy old Balin to the negotiations and not _him_ was a mystery for another day.

Thráin left them shortly thereafter and took Dís back to camp with him. Thorin, Frerin, and Dwalin were left to tidy up and take such tools as they could ill-afford to have stolen with them. 

“So,” Frerin said, just because he couldn’t stand a silence. “Settling, eh? That’s something.”

“I’m shocked he pulled it off, honestly,” Dwalin said, squinting down the road at Thráin and Dís’s retreating backs. “It’s not like Thráin’s inclined to talk himself up any. Still, he understands a tax code, mayhap that’s how he did it. What’d you reckon?”

This last was directed at Thorin who was working in slow, plodding silence; evidently his thoughts were miles away from them for Dwalin had to call his name before he responded, “Sorry, what?”

“Settling,” Dwalin said. “What’d you reckon?”

Thorin took his a breath, then shrugged his shoulders and let it all out as a woosh of air. “If we must, we must. This is as good a place as any that’s not Erebor.”

“And one step up from the Iron Hills,” Dwalin joked.

Thorin smiled wanly, “Aye, so it is. Though...well, it’s green here. That’s…”

“Green _grass_ ,” Frerin interjected, knowing that if Thorin got to reminiscing on Erebor’s green marble walls, they’d be there all night, stewing about it. “And trees. And bushes. And whatever other damned things live aboveground. Mark me, we’ll all be green as yonder tree ere long.”

“Or brown as yon tree trunks,” Dwalin said, rubbing at Frerin’s nose which was lightly sunburned. 

“Or brown as the trees,” Frerin agreed, rubbing at his nose. “But! A roof! I’m still very excited about the roof.”

“I’d hardly think so after what you’ve been through,” Dwalin teased him, eyes lighting on the holes in the ceiling. 

“I’m a stout-hearted fellow,” Frerin retorted. “Quick to heal from hurts as I am to forget them - ah, why don’t you too go on? We’re nearly done, I’ll gather up the rags and suchlike.”

“Wait…” Thorin began, but Dwalin cut him off before he could ask any questions.

“I’ll tell you all about it over a drink,” he said, linking his arm with Thorin’s and half-dragging him away. “Like I said to your adad, it’s my own business what I do with my own money and I think I’m owed a drink.”

“I don’t think - ” Thorin started, but was once again cut off by Dwalin.

“Nah, neither you nor he are permitted a thought on the matter,” Dwalin said firmly. “You coming along, Frerin?”

Frerin dearly wanted to, but having already spent Dwalin’s coin irresponsibly earlier, he thought he probably shouldn’t continue the trend into the evening. Besides, it looked as though they’d all forgotten about the extra pies, which meant that Frerin would have to eat them himself. It was his duty, he couldn’t just let them spoil. 

Frerin sat down on an older, sturdier piece of wall once his brother and cousin were well out of sight and prepared to tuck into his small feast when an unfamiliar voice called from the road, “‘Scuse me?”

Frerin looked up, startled and almost dropped his pie. “Ack!” he shrieked ineloquently.

“Sorry!” the stranger said, removing his cap from his head and wringing it between his hands. “Sore sorry. Erm. Are you Thorin Thráinul, by chance?”

“Oh, by the _Maker_ , no,” Frerin said, shaking his head and setting his pie to one side. “Nay, I’m his _much_ hansomer, _much_ more skillful, _much_ more amiable younger brother. And who are you?”

“Oh!” The stranger’s poor hat took another wringing and Frerin took the opportunity to study him. He was short, but finely built, thick through the shoulders and chest with a round belly and a handsome face topped with long, wavy yellow hair and a beard that had been cut recently short in mourning; Frerin could clearly see his thick neck as he swallowed nervously. “Erm. Víli Fíliul. Sir. Sire? Sir.”

Frerin blinked, then laughed out loud. “Ey, I’m not of-age for two years, no need to ‘sir,’ me. I’m Frerin. What’ve you come to see Thorin about? I’m afraid the forge is in sorry shape and won’t be ready for work for a week or more.”

Frerin extended his hand to Víli, who took it and shook it fervently. “I just come to thank him - will he be in tomorrow? I want to do it proper, him being so good to me family as to write us and all after the battle. I heared tell you lot took this smithy, but I don’t come off work ‘til day’s end. I would’ve come with me cousins and all for he done them a good turn - done a dozen or more families in the village a good turn and that’s the truth. But I wanted to thank him meself, on our behalf. What he wrote to us ‘bout…’bout me brother and Bifur and all. It were good of him and I want to tell him so.”

Some of the color drained from Frerin’s face and he fidgeted where he stood. This was one of the dwarves they’d written to, then. Thorin’s kindness come back to thank them. Frerin was suddenly deeply regretful that he hadn’t gone off with Thorin and Dwalin to the pub. This wasn’t his gratitude to lap up. He’d only written a few letters himself and while Thorin had done it out of goodness and duty, Frerin had only done it to please Thorin.

“He’ll be back tomorrow,” Frerin said, rubbing the back of his neck nervously. “Er. In the meantime, I can tell him what you said. You’re Bifur’s kin, then? How’s he getting on?”

“Er…” Víli seemed to be having trouble finding his words, and he spoke haltingly when at last he’d gathered himself. “Not so good, some days. Me cousin Bombur’s with him, mostly. He’s only a lad and not at work so much as me and Bofur - Bofur’s Bombur’s brother, they’re me cousins on me Mam’s side - so’s Bifur, only his Da were me Mam and me Auntie’s brother. See?”

“Aye, sure,” Frerin nodded, immediately forgetting the family tree as soon as it was recited to him. “I know the Healers gave him tonics for pain and such. Is he...mending, though? Up and about? Talking?”

“Er…” this time the pause was profound. “A bit. Strange, his Common Speech weren’t no better than mine, to be sure, but now it’s all gone away. And he...bad dreams, I think, so bad as they don’t go away when he’s awake. I’m on me way there now, actually, to give me cousins some time on their own. Me Mam’ll be by to help with supper and all. We’re getting on. I think it’s good for her, having somewhere to go. Someone to care for now…”

Víli trailed off and Frerin just stared at him, then looked down at his boots when he realized he was staring. This was absolute agony. For while he was the more gregarious of the two brothers, Thorin was much better when it came to serious matters. He knew what to say, far more than Frerin did. All Frerin knew how to do was change the subject.

“Erm.” He said, searching around for some other topic to light on. “Oh! Erm. Listen, don’t take this the wrong...I just wanted to...d’you like pie? You and yours? Blackberry pie?”

“Er...aye, we do,” Víli replied, apparently no better at going on at length about miserable topics than Frerin was. 

“Good!” Frerin exclaimed, running back to his bakery plunder. “Well, I’ve got a...blackberry tart that I can’t eat all on my own. And my family just hates blackberries. Hates them. Can’t stand the sight of them. But the girl at the bakeshop gave it to me for...well, I have it and I can’t eat it and it seems awful, wasting it, since we’ll surely waste it. So you ought to take it. Here.”

He practically threw the pie at Víli who was not so stunned he couldn’t catch it. “Oh, no, I can’t, surely you could find - ”

“I couldn’t,” Frerin babbled. “You’d be doing me a favor, honest. Because if I bring it back to camp there’re too many families to eat it and if I gave it to someone it’d look like I was bestowing favor or sommat daft like that and there’d be rows and it’d be my fault and I’d catch it from my Da and no mistaking - so take it. You’d be doing me a kindness. I’d be awfully grateful.”

Víli must have seen something desperate in Frerin’s face, for he tucked the pie under his arm. “Well, thank you. Very much. I’ll return the favor, promise.”

“Oh, no need,” Frerin said, gathering up his tools and rags, eager to be as far from the forge as he could get, away from well-intentioned strangers. “Anyhow. Must be off. Pleasure to meet you though - come by tomorrow, near day’s end, I’ll hold Thorin for you. You can talk to him yourself.”

Víli smiled and the effect was startling - his face seemed Made for smiling and Frerin almost found himself grinning back, reflexively. “Thanks for that. And the pie!”

He stuck out his hand to shake and Frerin shook it, briefly. “Pleasure. But come back when you can.”

“I will!” Víli vowed. “Surely will. Thanks again...Frerin, eh?”

“Frerin,” he nodded. “That’s me.”


	7. Chapter 7

Frerin was so discombobulated from the encounter that he fell into his old habits for coping with complicated emotions; he forgot all about it. Deliberately put it out of his mind and took a long walk before he headed back to camp, all smiles with scant traces of pie crust lingering in his beard. The camp was abuzz with talk of their settlement, most resigned, some hopeful, with occasional gripes thrown in for good measure. It was an excellent distraction and so Frerin made it all the way through supper, to bed, without uttering a single word to Thorin about his meeting with Víli. 

By the time he woke the next morning, it was utterly out of his thoughts as he applied himself (less diligently than his brother) to sorting out the chimney. And since they passed the whole day, from the sun cresting over the tops of the Mountains around them, to day’s end when it sank below their peaks again, without a visit from the fellow, it would have been safe to assume that Víli had forgotten all about his mission to thank Thorin as well. Or, perhaps, had considered Frerin’s agreement to pass on his thanks as good enough to satisfy his sense of common decency.

Not that Frerin thought as much. Not that Frerin reflected upon it at all. Ten minutes’ acquaintance was not a terribly long time to form an impression of another and anyway, aside from being uncommonly handsome (shorn beard and all), Víli hadn’t done much to distinguish himself in Frerin’s memory. Apart from causing him a momentary discomfort. Which Frerin had forgotten.

To say that Frerin had been uneffected from his experiences in war would be untrue. He had managed to learn a profound truth about himself: he would rather be stabbed in the chest than engage in an awkward conversation for more than five minutes together. It was agony. Agony! To stand there and not know what one ought to say, to not have a witty response waiting on the tip of his tongue. Agony to be serious and talk of things of importance like grief and gratitude. He fancied he understood Thorin rather better now.  
In his hesitating, stilted conversation with Víli, Frerin fancied for the moment that he could hear Thorin’s voice coming out of his own throat, for that was _precisely_ how his brother acted with acquaintances. He could talk fluently enough with family and friends who he knew very well, but throw Thorin in a room with a handful of dwarves he’d never seen before he either shut his mouth up tight like a locked box, or else he gave short answers with horribly long pauses in between his words. Frerin had never understood why he didn’t just say _anything_ and assumed that Thorin simply thought too much of his own dignity to act foolish in strange company. Now he suspected it was that, sometimes, Thorin simply didn’t know what to say. 

Naturally, he did not dwell on these thoughts. No, no, not Frerin. Hadn’t given them more than a cursory think before consigning them to the foggy reaches of memory. 

Hence why, three days after their initial encounter, Frerin hammered his own thumb when he heard, “Mister Thorin Thráinul?” from the entryway to the forge.

“OUCH!” Frerin shouted, but no one paid him any mind - it was himself, Thorin, and Dwalin alone that day - for Thorin’s whole attention was taken up by their visitor. 

“Aye?” he asked, warily.

Víli’s face broke out in that smile that so disarmed Frerin when first he’d seen it, but apparently it did not produce a similar effect on Thorin who stood, impassively by, waiting for Víli to explain himself.

“Oh! Good! Reckoned as such, for you’re the graven image of your brother - anyhow,” he swallowed nervously and his fingers beat a tattoo on the newly-installed countertop, “sore sorry I hasn’t come by sooner only Bifur’s in a bad way. Er. Not bad-sickly, just...anyhow, I been passing me days along of me cousins and so I hasn’t had the time t’wixt work and them to come by, but I come now.”

Thorin, who had _not_ been expecting him, only raised an eyebrow and asked, “What for?”

Víli glanced anxiously behind Thorin at Frerin, as if hoping that he would jog his brother’s memory or say something to clarify the situation. Frerin, whose mouth was occupied in sucking on his bruised thumb in a vain attempt to work the pain out quickly, could not oblige him.

“Oh. Er. I - I come by, what was it, three days ago?” Víli gamely replied. “To - er. To pay me respects. And compliments. And give you me thanks on behalf o’meself and me kinfolk for that letter you writed. It were good of you - decent and all to do such for soldiers as wasn’t even in your command. We ‘preciate it, me Ma and me cousins and I. Just wanted to tell you so face to face. I said so much to your brother when I come the first time.”

Thorin turned and cocked his head at Frerin, waiting for confirmation. Deciding that he couldn’t continue to keep his thumb in his mouth like a child, Frerin shook his hand out dramatically (still waiting for someone to pay lip service to his injury and give him a ‘poor you’) and said, “Er. Might’ve forgotten to tell you. But Víli here wanted to thank you for those letters you wrote. He’s Bifur’s...someone.”

“Cousin,” Víli supplied helpfully. “On me Mam’s side. And...and me own Da and brother was lost and you writed to tell us and it were good of you. So thanks. Mam’s got the letter, keeps it tucked in a box along of her bed and looks at it sometimes, but she don’t know her Common letters, so it’s the thought more than anything that she’s grateful for, but she is grateful, only she’s much taken up with Bifur and hasn’t time to come and say so, which is why I come.”

Poor Thorin went red in embarrassment, then pale. He blinked a few times, then cleared his throat and said, “It’s...I felt you were owed some word. That’s all. Has your mother gotten your father and brother’s pensions yet?”

Víli’s fingers stood drumming, “Er. Not as such. Not yet. There being no...ah. Well, there’s not so much cost, you know? When there’s no...ceremony. When there’s to be no ceremony and no...the injured are getting their pay-outs first - which is right! By the Maker, that’s the way to do it, I say. We can wait. I reckon as...it’ll be a long while afore Bifur can earn a wage.”

Thorin swallowed hard and could not look Víli full in the face when he said, “I’m sorry.”

“No, don’t be!” Víli exclaimed. “For he’s back to us and all! How much worse would it’ve been if we lost all three together? ‘Least we got Bifur, eh? We got him and...I thought he was much on the mend, but it’s like he took a step or two back, but there’s no reason he can’t get better. It’s only been a few months. An axe to the head’s not nothing.”

“It certainly isn’t,” Thorin said quietly. 

They lapsed into a long, embarrassed silence. Dwalin hovered off to the side, face shadowed by soot and dust such that Frerin could not make out his expression. Frerin, pain in his hand all but gone, scuffed his toe on the ground, and Thorin looked about ready to weep. It was horrible and all at once he determined to put a stop to it.

“How’d you like the tart?” Frerin asked, finally.

Víli actually perked up a bit, “Oh, it was a treat, but then anything Alfi and his kinfolk make’s bound to be! You know, me Mam hasn’t had much appetite, of late, but she had herself a nice helping, it’s just that good.”

“I don’t know if it’s being half starved or what,” Frerin crossed to the countertop to lean over and speak to Víli directly, “but I swear they made the best meat pies I’ve ever tasted!”

“They do!” Víli nodded vigorously. “I could be stuffed to the eyeballs on Durin’s Day, but I’d _still_ find space in me belly for one of Missus Sayra’s pies.”

“Ugh,” Frerin groaned, “I could eat a dozen in a sitting, I’m sure...ooh, and I’m tempted - ”

“But you haven’t any money,” Dwalin chimed in. “So, that’s that.”

“That’s that,” Frerin lamented. “I’ll have to content myself with the memory.”

“Well,” Víli said, clinging to the topic of pastry, “once you’ve got a few pennies, that’s where you’ll want to spend ‘em. There and Bildr’s pub - Alfi runs the best bake shop and Bildr’s got the best grog from here to the Misty Mountains! I’d swear by it - though I’ve not traveled meself, but I can’t _imagine_ a better mug o’stout could be got anywhere in the world.”

“Alfi and Bildr,” Frerin repeated. “Aye, I’ll remember that. I wasn’t waited on by a fellow, though, instead it was two lassies - one sweet and bonny as gold, the other...not so sweet.”

Víli laughed heartily at that, a sound that shook his belly just as much as it did the rafters of the smithy. “Oh! You must’ve met wee Miss Myra, then! That’s his second daughter and she’s about a sweet as a lemon! But Thyra, now, we’re great friends and she’s got all the charm what her sister didn’t inherit. Aye, must’ve been Thyra, yellow of hair, pretty of face?”

“That’s the one!” Frerin snapped his fingers. “She threw in the tart because her sister was rude to me.”

“We’ve all got it from Myra for one fault or another,” Víli shook his head. “She says I’m too loud, I hurt her poor ears. Says she don’t like the look of Bofur’s face - I haven’t heared her go on on Bombur, ‘cepting maybe as he’s too quiet. And Kí...ah. Anyhow, I reckon Bifur’s the only one of us she fancies. Diamond fellow, our Bifur is.”

Frerin ran out of things to say at that point and automatically looked over his shoulder at Thorin for...something. Guidance, could be. Or just to get a hint at what his face ought to be doing during a _serious_ conversation.

Thorin’s face was instructive, but Frerin was fairly sure he’d never master the combination of consternation and neutrality that was so uniquely _Thorin_. Even Dwalin couldn’t quite manage it for there was something about his brother’s eyes that bespoke kindness even when he looked annoyed. When Dwalin tried to look serious, he only looked furious. Frerin was sure that when he tried to look serious he just looked like he badly needed the privy. 

“Well!” Víli exclaimed. “Just wanted to extend our thanks. Glad I managed to find you, this time. Mister Thorin.”

Thorin nodded, then his grave expression broke and the line of his mouth puckered a bit, “I’m sorry I couldn’t have written you with better news.”

“But you did write,” Víli said and he smiled as he stuck his hand out to be shaken. “And that meant a lot, believe me.”

Thorin wiped his hands once on his trousers before he extended his right for Víli to grip. It seemed that Víli was not used to simple handshakes for he practically dragged Thorin across the counter to pull him close and pat him on the back. Thorin returned the gesture awkwardly before he was released and Víli bid the rest of them goodbye (though not as exuberantly).

“Where do you live?” Frerin called after him. “So we can return the call!”

Víli told him a slightly convoluted set of directions that involved turning left or right by the sign of various local shops and dwellings that none of them had heard about, but they had the vague impression that his family lived much closer to the mines than the situation of their forge, off the high street, far from the central peak when the court resided. 

“We’ll find you,” Frerin promised, regardless of the fact that he’d never ventured into that part of the village before. 

“Nice enough fellow,” Dwalin said when he was gone. “Sweet of him to come see you.”

“Mmm,” Thorin said, rubbing his eyes tiredly.

“Oh, what?” Ferin asked. “You can’t be annoyed, you can’t, he meant well!”

“I’m not,” Thorin mumbled. “It was sweet. Just let me alone a minute.”

To Frerin’s belated horror, he realized Thorin was scrubbing tears out of his eyes and he immediately turned his back and started scrubbing a bare patch of stone that had already seen the business end of his rag. Dwalin was braver than him.

Dwalin approached Thorin, slung an arm round his shoulder and kissed the side of his head. “Come along now,” he said. “You do enough kindnesses, they’re bound to come back round to you. You can’t go all weepy every time a dwarf thanks you.”

Thorin shook his head and swallowed hard. “It’s just...I feel badly. His father _and_ his brother and Bifur laid up - ”

“Aye, I know,” Dwalin said, releasing Thorin after squeezing his shoulder. “But try not to think about it too much. Else you’ll never stop thinking about it.”

Thorin made a sound of agreement and scrubbed his eyes one last time. “I just can’t help thinking we got off easy, but you - ”

But Dwalin started whistling, which he hardly _ever_ did when he was working and signaled an end to the whole conversation. Frerin took that as his cue to turn around and actually do something useful with himself, but he kept one eye trained on Thorin for the rest of the afternoon. Thorin had gotten hold of himself and worked diligently, but it was a strange thing. For as Frerin watched his brother closely, Thorin spent much of his time observing Dwalin with the same scrutiny.


	8. Chapter 8

They did get lodgings for themselves, eventually, the royal family being among the last to take a flat in the artisan’s block, a set of rough stone and earth-dug rooms nearer the forge than they had been living, away from the tents of the valley for good. At first, Freya was afraid that they’d be forced to lodge aboveground, with windows in every wall. When Dís pointed out that they’d been living outside all this time and rooms with windows were better than no rooms at all, Freya just gave her a sharp look and said that, there was no point in taking rooms if they were going to be completely sub-standard.

“Missus Irpa’s taken a Mannish house,” Thorin pointed out, valiantly coming to his sister’s defense. “Wood and all.”

The look Freya shot him was even sharper than the one that silenced Dís. “The day I make decisions based on what Irpa Hornboriul does and does not do is the day I shave my face and live amongst Men.”

But, fortunately, they managed to find a modestly priced flat on the very first row that ran below the earth, with nary a single window to be found, saved for the narrow shafts that permitted only a small slice of daylight for ventilation. 

They were very much utilitarian dwellings, whitewashed walls and rough stone floors with a small fireplace in a central sitting room. There were three anterooms, all small, all unfurnished. The privy was communal and located at the end of a hall and there were no bathing chambers to speak of. 

“What is the rent _going_ for?” Thráin grumbled once they’d settled in - which amounted to putting their bags down and hanging their coats on the pegs. “The view?”

“Would you prefer open air?” Freya snapped. 

“I’d _prefer_ not handing over hard-come wages for a few sorry walls,” Thráin shot back.

Freya’s hands went to her hips in her habitual fighting stance. “Well. Perhaps you should have thought about that before you refused rooms in the range proper - oh, very noble and self-sacrificing - ”

“I’m not about to live the high life while our people are hunkering down in the _dirt_ \- ”

“Ah, but that decision doesn’t benefit the _people_ does it? Oh, no,” Freya continued, cheeks reddening and breath coming fast. “No, Thráin must _suffer_ , mustn’t he? Nevermind that no one _else_ was offered such accommodations, nevermind that he might’ve been closer to the seat of influence so that he could perhaps wield _some_ power, no, no, not Thráin. He must toil and be _invited_ to the range on the pleasure of the lords and ladies! And that’s good enough for him, isn’t it, to take rooms in a flat without even running water - ”

“You might’ve said sommat at the time, mightn’t you?” Thráin interrupted, voice rising as it only ever did when he was furious. “Might’ve raised a few objections! But, nah, why bother, when you can just fight it out with me now it’s too late to go back on our agreements!”

“You wouldn’t listen! You never listen! You and your father, a stubborn streak a mile wide - to say _nothing_ about your mother who’d rather sleep under open sky! Don’t think they don’t know it, don’t think they aren’t laughing into their beards at you! Refusing a place of honor in the range as if it was noble - ”

“I’d rather pay for my own fucking rooms!” Thráin thundered. “Rather do that than find myself a _guest_ , for what’s the good of that? What influence can I have if I’m living in some Broadbeam bastard’s pocket? Think of that, eh, before you start going on about who’s getting laughed at - rather they laugh at me where I can’t hear ‘em than have ‘em sidling up to me reminding me what they’re owed. Fuck ‘em if they think they can own me - ”

“If you owed them at least you’d _have_ something!” Freya returned, blow for blow. “Better to be allies with the lords and ladies than _paupers_ living under their thumbs! So _what_ if we throw our lot in with them? So _what_? Better to have something to show for bending your neck to them than remain upright with nothing at all!”

As the argument bore endlessly on, Thorin quietly took stock of the rooms, tugging Dís along by the wrist. Though the flat had little by way of ornamentation, it did have one thing to recommend it - doors.

He entered one, Frerin following closely by with Balin and Dwalin at his heels for lack of anywhere else to go. Then, when all five were inside, Thorin quietly shut the door behind him, muffling the shouting. 

“Not bad diggings,” Frerin said loudly. “Look at that! Why, it’s a corner! A spot of the room where walls and floor and ceiling come together. A fellow could get spoilt in such a place!”

“I wouldn’t mind a window,” Dwalin said. “Less to be spent on oil, then.”

“But then you have the noise from the street to contend with,” Balin pointed out rationally.

“Ugh,” Dwalin grunted. “Better the noise from the street than the noise from - ”

“I’d not mind bedding down here,” Thorin interrupted him. “Runs alongside the fire - there’s one room that doesn’t, but I’ll bet it shares a wall with the neighbor’s hearth. So, all in all, should prove serviceable. Few carpets down, some bedding, could be alright.”

Dís was still staring apprehensively at the door. It wasn’t as if her parents arguments were new to her, only she’d hoped that they’d lessen, now that they had a place to call their own. 

“I wonder if the landlord’s got an objection to putting holes in the walls,” Dwalin commented idly. “Not a single shelf to be seen, only those pegs by the door.”

“Might be that we’re moving in where a family of cabinetmakers were,” Frerin pointed out. “Who needs shelves when you’ve got chests and such? Eh?”

He looked at Dís, then elbowed her arm to jostle her out of her reverie. “What?” she asked.

“What do you reckon?” Frerin asked. “Shelves or chests of drawers? What’d suit you?”

“Shelves cost less,” she said at once. Then, with a small smile added, “And you can’t stub your toe on a shelf. Since we haven’t any windows, and we’ll all be stumbling about mornings.”

“Pah!” Dwalin laughed. “What mornings? You’d all sleep ‘til the sun was full up, if you were allowed to.”

“I get my best work done at night,” Frerin sniffed. 

“What, sleeping?”

“I have a vivid imagination,” Frerin said with affected dignity. 

It suddenly seemed to occur to Balin that hiding out with his cousins and younger brother behind closed doors because of a bit of squabbling might be beneath his dignity. He chuckled at Frerin (and rolled his eyes on the off chance that someone might believe he thought the lad was genuinely funny), then made to leave. 

“Don’t - ” Dís started, but all was silence on the other side of the door. Well, not quite silence. Freya had gotten hold of a rag and started dusting the clean hearthstones. 

“Has he gone out?” Balin asked delicately, as if Thráin might have taken a stroll rather than stormed out in a great huff after fighting with his wife. 

Freya did not dignify Balin with an answer. 

“Right,” he said after an agonizing pause. “I’ll see about getting some timber. For shelves.”

That roused Freya slightly from her industry. “Don’t forget to ask if we can pound holes into _someone else’s_ walls.”

Balin ignored the sneer and merely replied, “We can close them again, if need be.”

To that, Freya said nothing and resolutely returned to mopping up dust that did not exist. 

“Shall I find something to eat for dinner, Ama?” Thorin asked, poking his head out the door. “There’s a bake shop in the high street Frerin found that’s not too dear. We could leg it down there, be back soon. What do you think?”

“I’m not hungry,” Freya said, without looking back at her son. “But go on if you want to. Aye, _all_ of you go on, I’d like some time alone. Do you have some money?”

“Enough,” Dwalin said. “Are you in the mood for pork, ma’am?”

Freya snorted and finally sat back on her haunches, pushing a stray lock of yellow hair out of her face, “I’m not in the mood for anything at all, laddie, ‘least of all displays of _manners_. Go on now, all of you, before I _throw_ you out.”

They didn’t need to be told again. At once the group scarpered out and up the stairs into the sunlight - where they found Thráin leaning against the building and smoking a pipe. Might have been a homely scene if he’d actually been smoking _inside_ the flat.

“Where are you off to?” he grunted at Thorin.

Thorin paused, nearly a century’s worth of habits causing his mind to race - throughout his childhood, no matter what answer he gave to one parent, he’d always wound up in the wrong. _Adad said I could, Ama said it was alright…_ No matter who’d given permission, if his parents were fighting (and they were always fighting), the word of one held no water with the other. 

“Erm, we were off to the...the bake shop Frerin was telling you about,” Thorin said after an awkward pause. “Might be cheaper than buying flour and oil and meat to stock the larder.”

“Aye, but flour and oil and meat last _longer_ than a pasty,” Thráin observed, looking them critically over. Thorin’s shoulders tensed, then drooped as he prepared for his father’s scrutiny to land squarely upon him, but, unexpectedly, Thráin said, “I’ll go along with you. Someone’s got to make certain you don’t spend it all on sweets.”

Dís grinned and threaded her right arm round her father’s left, rising slightly up on her toes to kiss his cheek. “Oh good!” she exclaimed. “I was worried we’d have to cook!”

“We will _someday_ ,” Thráin said to her. “Just not today. Alright, Frerin, where’s this damned bake shop?”

If Frerin had been Thorin he would have hesitated a fraction of a second too long, waiting to be sure that their father wasn’t somehow testing them, that his present amiability wasn’t a facade that his children should have been smart enough to recognize. And in that fraction of a second, Thráin could have listed off, in his mind, all the reasons why giving in to his children’s determination to spend money on treats was a terrible idea not only for him, but for them, and why he ought to change his mind immediately. 

But Frerin wasn’t Thorin and he _pounced_ on a good thing when he saw one. 

“This way!” he called merrily, grabbing hold of Thráin’s free arm and dragging him along down the road. “Good food and bonny girls behind the counter, you’ll _love_ it, Adad, just _love_ it!”

Thráin was not prepared to _love_ it, but he did glance about when he came in and did not immediately disparage all he saw which at least meant he approved of his son’s choice. 

The aforementioned ‘bonny girls’ were not present, but a bonny matron was, who seemed likely to be their mother. Short, plump, and keen-eyed, she hailed them just as soon as they crowded into the shop with, “What’s your pleasure?”

“Pork pies, please!” Frerin called back, without consulting anyone. That earned him a smack on the arm by Dwalin, which prompted Frerin to turn, wounded, and exclaim, “What? I said ‘please’!”

“We’ve had the pork,” Dwalin said in a long-suffering manner reminiscent of Balin. “We might try something else.”

“Ah, but we know that pork is good!” Frerin declared with self-assured logic. “So we ought to get it again - ”

“‘Scuse me,” the lady behind the counter said, drawing herself up to her full four-foot one inch height, “But _all_ our offerings are good, if I say so meself - and I do.”

Dís smiled and the lady smiled back at her, very warmly, eyes roving over the lot of them with an undisguised interest - whether because they were strangers or she anticipated making a large sale was anyone’s guess.

Thorin looked about in a sort of would-be casual way with his hands clasped behind his back. The posture had a certain military look to it, but his cocked head kept him from looking too severe. Dís wandered away from her father just enough to peer at the shelves behind the counter, filled with a delectable (though well-depleted) display of cakes, pies, and breads. 

Thráin got down to business before anyone got too cozy and started salivating for things they couldn’t afford. “What’ll fill up a crowd on the cheap?” he asked, blunt as usual.

To the ‘dam’s credit, she hardly blinked. “Well, our sausage bread, I’d say. It’s what I give me own wee ones - six in all - of an evening when I can’t be bothered to fry ‘em up anything too complicated. Haven’t had a complaint from a one of ‘em in seventy years.”

“How’s it keep?” Thráin asked.

“Well enough, tucked up in waxed paper - Alfi!” she called over her shoulder into a back room. “Two loaves o’sausage bread and be quick about it!”

Thráin looked down at her doubtfully. “Two?” he asked.

“We give generous portions,” she said, waving a hand dismissively and quoting the price.

Without having seen the portions, Thráin seemed satisfied with the amount he was being charged and handed the money over without complaint. Two large bundles were presented to him and, even through the paper, the aroma was enticing. 

“Will that do you?” the ‘dam asked, smiling proudly. 

Thráin didn’t smile back, but he nodded most civilly. “That’ll do me. Thanks.”

“Any time - we’re open day and night!” she informed him brightly. “Don’t you be a stranger, now.”

Thárin grunted back noncommittally, but Frerin’s response was pert enough, “Oh, you can count on that, ma’am, for we none of us can cook! Well, my Uncle Vigg can take whatever animal you like apart quick as winking - knows all the prayers and can get through ‘em like a forge alight, but as for _cooking_...well, if you like your steaks to taste and smell like old bootleather, then it’s us you’ll want to call on to roast ‘em up for you!”

The ‘dam laughed goodnaturedly and it was only Dwalin’s being clear across the shop that prevented him from giving Frerin another sharp smack - Thráin might have done it, but a certain sense of propriety made him keep his tongue and hands to himself in front of strangers. 

“What’re you Made for, then, if you don’t mind me asking?” she asked, leaning her elbows on the counter and looking at Frerin as if he was the most interesting dwarf she’d ever seen.

He grinned and winked, “Well, I’m Made to be a damned nuisance - just ask my brother - but the rest of the family...well let’s see...smith-warrior, smith-warrior, warrior-smith, warrior-scholar idling by the door, and one wee apprentice, whether she’s more smith or warrior remains to be seen.”

“All of Clan Longbeard, then?” she asked, though from her manner it seemed she knew already what their answer would be.

“All! Well, two of ‘em have a bit of Stonefoot blood in ‘em on their amad’s side,” Frerin allowed, ‘but as to the rest, Durin’s descendants through and through!”

“Reckoned as much,” she said, nodding in a satisfied manner. “Had to be! For I never had a dwarf come through them doors as had to bob down like a Man who wasn’t at least _part_ Longbeard.”

“Well, Durin walked alone,” Frerin pointed out. “He had to be tall so someone’d notice him!”

‘Frerin, that’s enough wit, save some for the rest of us,” Thráin said a trifle wearily. 

“Must he?” Thorin asked with a pained expression on his face. “Oh, let him spill it all at once and spare us once we’re home.”

The baker beckoned Frerin slightly closer. “That the brother?” she asked in a loud whisper.

“That’s him,” Frerin smiled. 

“Reckoned it had to be him or the one what hit you,” she chuckled.

“Ah, Dwalin’s only a cousin,” Frerin said carelessly, waving his hand. “And he’s tetchy.”

The name ‘Dwalin,’ seemed to strike something within the dam, for she straightened up and looked at them all with new eyes. A passle of Longbeard smiths...come in together...in the company of Dwalin, one of the heroes of Azanulbizar - but that would mean that she’d just given two loaves of bread to -

“Come along you lot,” Thráin said, inclining his head sharply to the door. “Your amad’s waiting. Balin, Dwalin, you too, unless you’ve decided you’ve taken a liking to the place and want to let rooms.”

They all filed out before the ‘dam could summon her breath or courage back to ask what the rest of them were called. But Frerin turned at the last moment and waved at her. Mute, she waved back, a little stunned. 

“What’s got you come over so silent?” her husband asked, poking his head out of the kitchen. “You haven’t bellowed for me in five minutes! Alright?”

“Alright,” she nodded slowly. “Only...only check the till, Alfi. I think we just got ten pennies off a king.”


	9. Chapter 9

Despite Freya’s complaints about the lack of privacy, amenities, and the size of the rooms, their living arrangement was not uncommon among Dwarrowfolks. Indeed, in Erebor many of the dwellingplaces came clustered around common areas that might be shared among many branches of a family or else those who worked together had a tendency to dwell together. Obviously there were differences - even the meanest apartments in Erebor had some sort of tap for water and rudimentary plumbing - and family units would not be living quite so on top of one another, but their days in the Ered Luin soon began to feel familiar. If not exactly homely. 

Freya herself was attempting to make the best of it. The children were stunned and Thráin not altogether pleased to arrive at the flat after a day at the forge to find the main chamber had been painting green in their absence. 

“What’s all this?” Thráin asked, squinting about as if he thought his eye might be playing tricks on him. 

“I hate all that white,” Freya said flatly. “It’s a decided improvement.”

Frerin snapped his fingers. “Aha! So _that’s_ where the money went. I think I’m owed an apology.”

It did solve a mystery, the appearance of the green walls. Just that morning, Thráin had reached into the locked box that they pooled their meagre pin money into and found their funds slightly depleted. Suspicion had immediately fallen upon Frerin for no other reason than the fact that Frerin had darted to his father’s side as soon as he heard his exclaimed oath to see what the trouble was.

Thráin’s blustered had blown itself out more quickly than usual. After Frerin swore up, down, left, right, and sideways that he’d not taken a penny that wasn’t accounted for, they trudged off to work in a silent, hungry line. If Thráin decided to be brutally honest, the missing money wasn’t meant to go for a higher purpose - it was their breakfast money, spent almost daily at Mister Alfi’s bakery. Their one indulgence. And one Thráin could begrudgingly give up since they could cook up a batch of bread to get through their days quite conveniently if they had a mind to. Conveniently, if not tastily. 

“I’ll make it up,” Freya said, waving a hand as if extinguishing the candle of Thráin’s wrath. “I’ve taken some piecework.”

They were installed directly below a family of jewelers; Freya passed them on the stairs with some frequency when she was fetching water or preparing to do some washing. It hadn’t taken her long to strike up a conversation, she could go on at _length_ about her chosen trade. If she wasn’t willing to hire herself out as a paid employee under some Western master, she was quite willing to do a bit of close-up fiddly work for the neighbors. Satisfied her pride, anyway, and if Freya’s pride was satisfied, her mood improved ten-fold. 

“You’ll have your sausagebread and your pies,” she added, with a significant look at Thorin and Frerin. “And I’ll live somewhere half-way habitable, thank you _very_ much.”

“Ahem!” Frerin coughed loudly. “What was that? ‘Oh, Frerin, best and brightest diamond in my treasurehouse, how _could_ I have accused you of theft, candle in the darkness, grindstone for my sharpest sword, tallest and mightiest peak in my range - ’”

“So you didn’t take the coins,” Thráin cut him off sourly. “You want a medal for _not_ doing something you oughtn’t?”

“Wouldn’t go amiss,” Frerin replied airily. Then, trying to curry favor, approached his mother and kissed her cheek. “I think it looks a treat, Ama.”

“Very nice,” Thorin echoed, though he seemed less enthusiastic - possibly because he was still pining over the loss of a big breakfast earlier in the day.

“Are you going to paint the bedrooms the same color?” Dís asked curiously.

Freya snorted and walked right up to her daughter, taking her face in both hands and peering directly into her eyes. “Ha. If this is the room where I’m to be spending my time, then this is the room I want to be responsible for improving. If you want the bedrooms to get the same treatment, you take care of it - anyway, you only see the backs of your eyes when you’re in there, so why should it trouble you?”

For the smallest of seconds, Dís thought that this was all leading up to a scolding, but then her mother smiled and pulled her head closer to kiss her brow. She relaxed and grinned. “Only it looks so _nice_ ,” she began, but Freya released her and shook her finger.

“I’ve got a thimble’s worth of patience for flattery,” her mother informed her. “And Frerin’s filled it right up.”

Frerin grinned and preened and Dís stuck her tongue out at him. Thorin rolled his eyes and with a wry smile turned to see how Dwalin felt about these developments (and about being cheated out of breakfast to finance them), but though he’d been following at Thorin’s heels the whole way back, he was nowhere to be seen. 

“Where’s Dwalin got to?” Thorin asked no one in particular.

“You can’t have lost track of him,” Freya observed with a small smile. “Bless his hands, but he’s not exactly hard to spot, dear lad.”

“Might’ve forgot summat and doubled back,” Thráin said. “Or gone to drag Balin out of the archives - turns out there’s a fellow who remembers Dóra fondly and got him browsing privileges or suchlike. He told me more, but I wasn’t listening.”

“If Dóra heard you say as much, she’d pluck your beard,” Freya said. “For not caring about the library _and_ for not listening to her golden child.”

“Nonsense - Dwalin was always her favorite,” Thráin replied. “And Balin’s...was Fundin’s. Fair’s fair and all that. Two parents, two lads, each one’s bound to like one more than the other.”

“But what if you’ve got three children and only two parents?” Dís asked, her eyes round and mock-innocent. “How do you divvy up favorites then?”

“I grant you, it’d be a tricky proposition for most,” Thráin replied. “But don’t you worry, lass - you’ve not got heavy competition.”

“ _What?!_ ” Frerin exclaimed, aghast.

“I’m going to look for Dwalin,” Thorin muttered, to anyone who was listening to him, which no one was.

“You know, now that you’ve made the place look tolerable,” Thráin said, soundly ignoring his sons, “we might have Maeva and Gróin round. To supper.”

“Only if we’re having Vigg and Hervor,” Freya replied. “Someone’s got to do the cookery round here and it won’t be me - and I _know_ it won’t be you.”

The sound of his parents’ good-natured bickering followed Thorin as he made his way back to the surface - more pleasant than the sound of their heated arguments following him out the door, but all the more jarring for being so. Perhaps settling _was_ doing them all good, as Dís optimistically maintained. Or, perhaps, Thráin and Freya had lost their minds. Either possibility was distinctly possible. 

Dwalin hadn’t doubled back to retrieve some lost tool, as it turned out. He was leaning against the wall that housed the uppermost level of flats with his hands in his pockets, looking peevish.

“I could kill for some tobacco,” he said as soon as Thorin came within speaking distance.

“I could kill for some coffee,” Thorin replied, raising an eyebrow. Or a slice of sausage bread, but _that_ was unlikely to happen, until they all contributed spare coins back to the till. Thorin just hoped that Ama didn’t get it in her head that they needed wall hangings to keep out drafts. 

“Turns out Frerin’s not a thief,” Thorin said lightly. 

Dwalin snorted, “Nah, I didn’t think it was him - he mightn’t get fussed over buying a pie or two with _my_ money, but I think he’d stop short before he took something of your adad’s. Anyway. Fancy a walk?”

“So long as it’s not past a tobacconist,” Thorin cautioned. “I haven’t the strength of will to keep my money in my purse, I’d rather not be tempted.”

Dwalin glanced sideways at Thorin, who felt the meaning behind his glance without his having to say a single word. _Willpower? This coming from the dwarf who always took one half his allotted rations just to make sure everyone else got their fair share? The fellow who never complained about working in blistering heat or stinging cold? The dwarf who wrote sympathy notes to half the families on the continent? Really, Thorin?_

To which unspoken incredulity, Thorin only shrugged, reddened, and muttered, “Everyone’s got their vices.”

Dwalin laughed out loud and hauled Thorin to his side with an arm slung over his shoulder. “Thanks,” he said gratefully. “I needed that.”

“Whatever for?” Thorin asked, favoring him with his own sideways glance. “My mother’s tastes have you that down?”

Shaking his head, Dwalin grunted in the negative. “Nah. Sentimental. That’s all.”

“Oh?” Thorin asked. “You or her?”

“Both,” Dwalin replied. “She picked a fairly particular shade of green, you know.”

Thorin did know. The green marble halls of Erebor were legendary, riven through as they were with gold. Their own flats at home were hewn of the same, despite their silver-and-marble facades. As ill at ease as they all felt in the West, Freya’d done her damnedest to make their new residence suit her. And what suited her was whatever glimmer of Erebor she could find to bring into their rooms. He’d recognized that almost at once and he couldn’t fault her for it. 

“Must’ve been a custom job,” Thorin replied as his stomach rumbled ominously. “Explains where the pastry money got to.”

“So you said,” Dwalin reminded him with a rueful grin. “Poor wee Frerin getting the blame.”

“He’s not so wee,” Thorin pointed out. “Few square meals a day, he’s nearly as tall as me - could overtake you, if he’s lucky.”

“Ha!” Dwalin laughed. “I’ll believe _that_ the day Durin wakes from sleep. Nah, it’d never do. I’ve got to be tallest - someone’s got to keep an eye on you, after all and Balin’s not up to the task.”

“Ey, he’s got your father’s eyes,” Thorin pointed out. “And next to Umad, Mister Fundin had the best eyes in the peak and that’s a fact.”

“Mmm,” Dwalin said, the grin fading. “So it was.”

His arm was resting lightly now over Thorin’s back, his grip nearly gone slack. Thorin raised his own arm and brought it up to squeeze Dwalin’s far shoulder.

“I know you like to keep an eye on us,” Thorin muttered quietly, just for Dwalin to hear. “But...it’s alright to let someone else do the watching out. Sometimes. Understand? If you want to talk about - ”

“Balin met someone who spoke well of my Ma,” Dwalin said, loudly. “Got him into the library and all.”

“Aye, I know,” Thorin replied, a trace warily. For all of Dwalin’s sideways glances and long-suffering sighs about how stoical Thorin was, he could be the most closed-mouth dwarf as ever hefted an axe when it suited him. “Ada said.”

“Good for him too,” Dwalin continued, “for admission to the archives costs an arm and a leg otherwise. Balin was complaining about it a few weeks ago, there was some matter of tax that Thráin wanted looked into and he didn’t think he’d manage to get a chance to see to it. Thought the public records might be locked up.”

“That a fact?” Thorin asked. “Is that legal?”

“Well you know Balin,” Dwalin rolled his eyes. “When one thing doesn’t go his way, he thinks the whole enterprise is fucked. Anyhow, got him in alright. The libraries round here are all patron-funded. Shite, isn’t it?”

“Shite,” Thorin echoed. “Your uncle’d have a fit.”

But though he’d spoken right in Dwalin’s ear - his whole ear, not the one that had been bitten - his dearest friend and cousin acted as if Thorin hadn’t said a word. 

They were drawing very near the marketplace, which was at something of a lull in the darkening twilight. Some carts were packing up for the day, others were arriving for the evening, but these were fewer in number and held little to amuse them, only cloth for clothes they didn’t have the time to sew and baubles they couldn’t afford. The two were about to give the walk up and turn round toward their lodgings when they were halloed by a familiar voice. 

“Aha! Our own noble lords and all!”

Víli’s eager face beamed up at them as he jogged to a stop right in the middle of their path. He made a hasty bow and whistled over his shoulder shouting, “Look who I found! Ma! Didn’t I say? Tall as trees, the lot of ‘em!”

It was clear to see where Víli got his good looks from. Though the long, upturned nose wasn’t something Víli had inherited, the warm brown eyes, golden hair, and stout frame could have come from none other than the dwarrowdam who bustled toward them at scarcely a less sedate pace than her son. 

“Mercy me!” she gasped, looking between the cousins and Víli. “Which one’s Mister Thorin, then?”

When Víli indicated Thorin, she wasted not a moment. Varla beckoned him down and then, to her son’s mild horror, kissed him on the cheek and embraced him warmly. “What a treasure you are, lad!” she exclaimed, her voice hitching only slightly. “What a treasure!”

Víli eyed Dwalin cautiously, not sure if his mother was breaching some kind of decorum, but Dwalin looked absolutely delighted and he decided she must have the right of it. 

When Varla released Thorin, it also became obvious from whom it was that Víli developed his propensity for chatter, “You know, them overseers of the poor what hands out the pensions, they don’t seem to have a warm, feeling heart in their bosoms and that’s the truth! Why I was saying just the other day - weren’t I, Víli? - I was saying if they could see what a state our poor Bifur is in and him not got his full sum! ‘Oh, we got to give it incremental-like,’ they says, ‘in installments’ - just like Bifur’s going to up and spent it all on a horse-cart! ‘Well,’ says I, ‘if you could see what state he’s in, what with the healers and the medicines and me own son and me nephews missing half the day’s work in minding him - to say naught of me, I never talk about meself - anyhow, I says, you’d see that money handed out sharpish, wouldn’t you?”

She paused for breath here, but only for a split second, too fast for Thorin to even make an encouraging affirmative sound. “And then, o’course, he gives me the round-around, talking ‘bout how there’s other poor sods what needs their money and it don’t do them no good to empty the treasury and I says I ain’t talking about no auld fellow with a gammy leg who’s collecting what’s his from a raid twenty-five year ago - though we feel them pains still, don’t we, Víli darling? - anyhow, I says, well, you mightn’t see what injuries them poor lads and lassies come back with, but do you know who did? Thorin Thráinul, I says, went round all them campaigners’ bedsides and them as wasn’t so lucky as to be in the healer’s tents - bless their blades and axes - and _he_ writed us such a beautiful letter! He took the time, I says, and if a foreign prince can do such for strangers, oughtn’t our own people have the goodness of heart to look out for their own?”

She stopped speaking so abruptly that Thorin paused an embarrassingly long time before he realized he was expected to answer. 

“Er…” he said awkwardly. “I just...I’m sorry the payments aren’t coming quickly. Is there anything I can do?”

And once again he was swept up in an embrace. 

“What a gem!” Varla exclaimed as she released him. “What a diamond lad you are! Isn’t he? Asking what all there is he might do - you know what you did do, sure enough? Gave Alfi the _fright_ of his life! I got it from young miss Thyra only a few days ago, nearly on the _floor_ when he found out just who you are and how much you like his victuals! Could have knocked him over with a feather is what I heared. But why shouldn’t you? His kin’s only made the _best_ bread in the range going back to...oh, far back as anyone can remember and then some.”

Despite the fact that he was being talked over and manhandled, Thorin found himself rather liking this enthusiastic lady. Hearing her gratitude made him feel rather...well, proud. That writing had been the right thing to do, that it had actually been some little comfort rather than a responsibility borne of duty. 

“He’s bread’s good,” Thorin agreed, not so at his ease that he could converse as fluently and cheerfully as Varla evidently could with strangers.

“And his pies,” Dwalin added, ever helpful (or perhaps just wistful, he’d also skipped breakfast.). 

“Aye,” Thorin nodded. “And the pies.

His stomach growled and betrayed him, but Varla only smiled broadly, lighting up like a candle in a dark room. “Oh, have you lads eaten yet? But you _must_ come sup with us - unless you’ve other plans?”

Her eyes darted towards the central peak of the range, as if it was possible that by some miracle, they’d been invited to actually dine with their hosts. Thorin would have laughed at the idea if it wouldn’t have been the height of rudeness. His father might well be extended every courtesy, but there were limits to such generosity. Balin hadn’t even been able to get into the library without a personal recommendation by someone who trusted him through happenstance. 

“My mother’s expecting us,” Thorin said, inclining his head away from the mountain city and toward the humbler village abodes. He thought that was quite enough by way of a polite excuse, but Dwalin stepped right up along the back of him so that he could not turn and bid them farewell. 

“But we could come round some other time,” Dwalin offered. “Whenever it’s convenient. Thorin’d like to look in on Bifur too, ma’am.”

“A gem!” she repeated. “An absolute treasure - what a fine job of bringing-up your kin has done on you! Bifur can’t take many callers, I’m afraid, but I’m sure he can take you on! Here at home...oh, poor lad gets confused - and who wouldn’t? With an axe to the head and all. But I’m sure it’d do him good to see you and...sorry, what’re you called, dear, I didn’t catch it?”

“Dwalin, ma’am,” he replied, with a respectful bob of his head. “At your service.”

“Oh! And you were, to be sure!” Varla stopped just short of throwing her arms around Dwalin - Thorin, having written, had evidently overcome the need for respectful distance while Dwalin still merited having some personal space of his own. “The big hero - aye, they weren’t exaggerating, for you’re as tall a fellow as ever I’ve seen, bless your bearer! But just so, you must come round - both of you! And isn’t there another brother?”

“Frerin,” Thorin, Dwalin, and Víli said at once. 

“That’s the one!” Varla nodded. “Anyhow, you must come by! I don’t want your Ma waiting on you, off you get, but it were _such_ a pleasure! What a lucky thing, stumbling over you and all! And we can use our share o’luck, can’t we?”

She bid them farewell, then, even waving over her shoulder as she and Víli tottered off down the high street. Dwalin and Thorin returned the gesture, though rather weakly. 

“Why do I feel as though I’ve been through a storm?” Thorin asked, when they were out of earshot.

“Simple,” Dwalin replied. “That ‘dam’s a force of nature. And here I was thinking it was the _son_ who talked a lot. Can you imagine what supper’ll be like?”

And so it was with much greater anticipation than Thorin could ever recall feeling over a family meal that he and Dwalin made their way back to the flat. They met Balin outside the door and the three of them were roundly scolded by Freya upon entry for being _very_ late and causing the meat to get overdone. Frerin whinged that his portion was cold in addition to being burnt, Dís countered that it wasn’t as bad as all that, and Thráin shouted at them all to shut up and let him eat in peace. The meal was conducted silently after that and Thorin could not but find the quiet a relief.


End file.
